Essentially Murder Academy
by Satan Abraham
Summary: Your name is Jane Crocker and you think that there is something strange about this school. [school life of mutual killing au] [alpha kids/dancestor trolls] [multichapter]
1. Chapter 1

Your name is Jane Crocker and you are excited for your first day at Sburb Academy! Your father and you had a small going away party the night before you left, because it is a boarding school with people from all over the country attending! You just got off your plane, and now you're standing in front of the Academy, gripping your suitcase tightly.

You don't see anyone else, and you're not sure if that's a good thing or not. Maybe you're early, or maybe you're late and have missed everything. You seriously hope that it's the former, but you should be able to give your classmates cakes or something as an apology; you are, after all, the Super High School Level Baker.

Smiling a little to yourself, you enter the academy, pausing for a bit at the door to gape at the utter size of the place. It's certainly a far cry from your average-sized home in Washington!

You push open the doors and step inside, glancing around. There's nobody in the entrance… oh dear, you probably are late. You're sure that your letter said one, though, and it's only a quarter after noon…

You glance back, but the door has swung shut behind you with a finalizing _thud _and you're left with your worries.

The next thing that happens is strange. You're in the gym, but you can't quite place when you got there. You turn back, but behind you is an entirely unfamiliar hallway, and in front of you is a fairly decent sized group of people, milling around and talking to one another. Frankly, you're not sure where to start.

A guy sidles up next to you, throwing an arm around your shoulders. He has a cigarette between his lips. You wonder if he's actually eighteen, and if this school is so lax as to let tobacco onto their premises.

"Hey, kitten," he says. "A little nerve-wracking, eh, being the last one here?"

He smells like Axe and leather – surprisingly, there's nothing to suggest that he actually smokes. Either way, you are uncomfortable, and try to wriggle away a little. He appears not to notice or, if he does, he doesn't do anything to make you comfortable.

That is, until a girl who you are fairly certain is drunk – you _swear _it's one and you _swear _she can't be more than sixteen or seventeen – shoves him away and takes his place, though she's more reassuring than anything. "Leave her alone, Cro," she says, words mixing together a little but nothing unintelligible. She looks at you and smiles. "I'm Roxy Lalonde."

**ROXY LALONDE ; SUPER HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL HACKER**

"Jane Crocker," you say, and she nods. "You know him?"

"Sure," she says. "You're late. We already introduced ourselves, but I can take you around and get you acquainted with everyone. Too-much-Axe-and-unlit-cigarette is Cronus Ampora. He says the unlit cigarette is like that because he doesn't like the taste, but I saw a _se-rious_ looking inhaler in his bag."

**CRONUS AMPORA ; SUPER HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL MUSICIAN **

He scowls at her and slinks away. You realize as he goes that he's dressed up in some weird Greaser getup – jeans and a white t-shirt with his hair, far too black to be anything but died, greased up in a pompadour.

"It kind of sucks," Roxy says. "Because, I'd totally tap that, but I don't know if I could trust him. Like, _damn, _that ass."

You giggle, a little nervous. Roxy is a little overwhelming in her own way, but you don't get a bad feeling from her – you favor yourself an amateur detective, and detectives can usually _feel _if people are bad or not – so you think that maybe she'll be a good person to introduce you to everyone, at least.

"Anyway!" she says, readjusting her grip on you. "I'm gonna introduce you to our dear Jakey, who is immensely handsome and everyone who isn't in love with the Weeaboo is in love with him, even though we've been here for about ten minutes."

You try to stutter out a reply, but she just pulls you along before depositing you in front of two guys. One of them is tall, heavily muscled, and a little awkward-looking with what you hope is a fake sword strapped across his back and triangle-shaped sunglasses. The other is a smallish boy with dark skin and slight buck teeth. He's absolutely adorable.

"Hello ladies!" he says brightly.

That has to be Jake.

**JAKE ENGLISH ; SUPER HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL ADVENTUERER **

**DIRK STRIDER ; SUPER HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL SWORDSMAN**

"Jake, this is Jane! Jane, Jake. And the stoic hottie is Dirk," she says professionally. Dirk glances to the side but doesn't speak. Jake's grin widens.

"I'm the Super High School Level Adventurer! Jolly good title, isn't it?" he asks. You just sort of nod, completely tongue-tied. Roxy apparently notices your predicament, because she gives them both a sloppy salute and steers you away.

"Everyone's a little much to take in, aren't they?" she asks. "Only eleven to go!"

Seeing the expression on your face, she laughs.

"Not all of them are this… okay, they are. They _totally _are. We might skip Vantas if we can, though, he might keep ups forever," she says, chattering aimlessly. The two of you have come to a sort of standstill when someone bumps into both of you from behind.

"Move, beach."

You're not quite sure, but you think that whoever just bumped into you used a nautical-themed pun.

That's just really weird. You're not sure why you'd point it out otherwise.

The two of you turn around. It's two girls – the one who spoke is taller and lankier, with toned arms and collarbones aggressively jutting out. She's dark – not quite as dark as Jake English, but much darker than Roxy, who you're fairly certain would glow in the dark. Her hair's long and braided, falling to her waist. Her clothes are almost falling off of her, but you think she sort of meant to do that.

Both of the girls are wearing glasses, but that's where the similarity ends. The girl standing a bit behind the lanky one is shorter and curvier, and about the same color as Roxy. She looks annoyed. Both of them do, to an extent, but she looks more than a bit exasperated.

**MEENAH PEIXES ; SUPER HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL HEIRESS**

**ARANEA SERKET ; SUPER HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL EXPOSITOR **

"Meenah and Aranea," Roxy informs you as she leads you away. "They're both – _par_don my French – bitchy and weird. In their own ways. Meenah's a bit more straightforward with it, but I have a bad feeling about Aranea… ooh! Rufioh!"

The teenager she's waving at is standing uncomfortably between two other high schoolers, one who is shouting in some language to a larger, sweatier one. He gives them an awkward smile and wriggles out of the middle, breathing out a sigh of relief.

"Thanks, doll…" he says. He rubs the back of his head. "Man… those two…"

**RUFIOH NITRAM ; SUPER HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL WEEABOO**

"He's almost as irresistible as our dear Jakey," Roxy says. You wonder how she knows them all so well in such a short amount of time, but you decide not to ask as she tells you about the two who are still fighting over Rufioh. "The one who's speaking what I _think _is Japanese is Damara Megido. I don't know what she's saying –"

"You really don't want to know…" Rufioh says.

"Right, right, and the other one is Horuss Zahhak."

**DAMARA MEGIDO ; SUPER HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL GOOD LUCK**

**HORUSS ZAHHAK ; SUPER HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL RENAISSANCE MAN **

Roxy pulls you away from this situation, which you are honestly a bit freaked out by, and over to a larger group. They seem to be in groups of two, though they're all standing by each other like they've decided to be friends, or at least don't like the others in the group.

They're all boy-girl pairs, the two closest to you a pair of a short boy in a red sweater lecturing a girl with numerous tattoos about her revealing clothes. She's just barely tolerating it, it looks like, and the minute he says something she doesn't agree with, she snaps back, rolling out arguments faster than he can get angry about.

**KANKRI VANTAS ; SUPER HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIOR**

**PORRIM MARYAM ; SUPER HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL CARETAKER**

The next two are communicating through sign language, a short girl with cat ears and a tall, frankly incredibly, incredibly creepy, man in a skeletal bodysuit. Their hands are flying so fast that you don't even know if _they _can understand each other.

**MEULIN LEIJON ; SUPER HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL SHIPPER**

**KURLOZ MAKARA ; SUPER HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL CULT LEADER**

The last group have sat down on the floor and have pulled out the handheld gaming devices. The girl keeps laughing and helping out the boy, who seems to be having a fairly good time as well. This ends as soon as Cronus Ampora comes over, however, and faster than you can process it, the girl kicks his feet out from under him and tells him to 'fuck off.'

**LATULA PYROPE ; SUPER HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL GAME GIRL**

**MITUNA CAPTOR ; SUPER HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL SKATEBOARDER**

"And that's all of them!" Roxy says cheerfully. "Let's go back with Jake and Dirk. They're the least weird out of this whole –"

Before she can finish her sentence, a small green puppet appears. It's suspended from the ceiling by strings, you can see that much, and it pops down at the front of the gym.

There are two sides to the puppet – one with red swirls on the cheeks, one with green.

"Well!" the green side says, and it seems to smile. "Let's get started, shall we?"

* * *

**This has been done so many times, but I really really like the idea of it and I've had a few executions/murders in mind for a while now so.**


	2. Chapter 2

You all freeze, Roxy with her arm still around your neck, Cronus Ampora pausing his search for his cigarette, which had fallen out when Latula had tripped him, and Jake pausing the story he was telling to Dirk.

The puppet flips and you're faced with the red side. "Alright, dumbasses," it says, and you have never felt such malice from a _puppet. _"We're going to –"

Green side again. "Have a lovely time here –"

"Killing each other-"

"At Hope's Peak, where there will be absolutely no killing going on!" the green side finishes, and it struggles to hold on before the red side takes over again.

"Ignore that annoying bitch," it says. "We're going to play a 'game.' You're all going to kill each other. And _then_ you're going to have to be smart enough to fool people into thinking it wasn't you. Or you'll be-"

"Put in detention!" the green side pops up for a brief moment before the red side takes over again.

"Executed," it says plainly.

The green side takes over again, and when it does, it looks rather exasperated. "I'm Calliope. Please ignore my brother, dears, Caliborn is a bit of a downer sometimes. But I'm also afraid that he's right – this plan is already in motion and there is, frankly, nothing I can do to stop it. There are complete rules in your student handbook. Please collect them on your way out."

With that, the puppet pops completely out of view and they're left in the gym, totally stunned. To your surprise, it's Meenah and Dirk who step up to take charge.

"Alright, listen up, 'cause I'm only gonna say this once," Meenah says. "Obvifishly, we need a leader-"

"To get out of here and figure out what asshole put us in here," Dirk says. He steps away from Jake for a moment to stand in front of Meenah. She studies him. He studies her back, and then turns to the rest of them. "Obviously, nobody's going to kill anyone. Nobody's psycho enough to do that, right?"

You notice that he pays special attention to a few people in particular – Kurloz Makara, Latula Pyrope, and, for some reason, Cronus Ampora, who has given up on finding his lost cigarette and instead pulls another one from the pack in the pocket of his leather jack. "Well, yeah," Cronus says, and stretches. "I mean, I can think of _tons _of fun things to do that doesn't include killing."

There's an awkward silence.

"I was talking about sex."

Dirk clears his throat. "Right," he says, slightly pinkish. He glance back at Meenah, who is now just sort of watching him do this and grinning. "Anything to add?"

"Nah," she said. "I wonder if they have a pool."

"Of course they have a pool!" Horuss Zahhak says. "It's the best school, only for the best of us. Why wouldn't they have a pool?"

Mituna Captor speaks for the first time, and it's something so profanity-ridden and screeching that you can't actually understand him.

"'Tuna can't swim," Latula says, tossing her hair over her shoulder. "We'll stick to skateboarding. This gym looks _totally _rad, and I bet the hallways will be _rockin' _to skate in, too."

"Remember to be thinking about how privileged you are to be _able_ to skateboard," Kankri Vantas starts. "There are several people with no legs or very little control of their legs-"

Porrim smacks a hand over his mouth and gives them all a strained smile. "I'll take him to his room," she says. She heads to the table that you're pretty sure wasn't there before and grabs two of the electronic student handbooks. Slowly, everyone else follows. First is Rufioh, who glances around a little nervously before grabbing his. Horuss and Damara are right after him. The gym is slowly emptying, and soon it's just you, Roxy, Dirk, Meenah, and Cronus, who is still sulking.

Dirk heads over to the table and picks up his. He gestures with it, a little jerkily, a little awkwardly. "Right," he says. "So. Uh, find me or Meenah if you guys are having trouble with anything."

Meenah cackles. "I ain't promisin' nothing." Then she leaves, too."

"That boy is _prime _boyfriend material," Roxy says. You glance at her.

"Dirk?"

"Who _else_? I sure ain't talking about Ampora."

Ampora, who is checking his hair in a compact mirror, scowls. "I'm definitely prime boyfriend material," he says. He looks you over again, and you feel more than a little self-conscious. Then his gaze is back to Roxy. "Too bad you can't see it, kitten, because I would _definitely _sleep with you."

With that, he leaves. Roxy sighs and steers you toward the table. There are two electronic student handbooks left, one with a sticky note with 'Jane Crocker' on it, one with 'Roxy Lalonde.'

"I guess we better find our rooms, right?" Roxy asked. "I hope we're next to each other! How cool would that be? We could have, like, sleepovers."

You wonder just how drunk she is, to be making jokes at a time like this. Still, you do grab your electronic student handbook and power it on. It flickers on and you're faced with options – it apparently also functions as your ID, and the second tab you can click on is 'Rules.'

You decide that before you figure that out, you should probably find your room. Roxy's already off, scrolling through hers as she walks and stumbling a little. You look at your ID and find that you're in room sixteen, next to Dirk and across the hall from Meulin. Roxy is four doors down, and she gives you a pout as she scans her electronic student idea and enters the room. You get the same idea.

All of your stuff is in your room. This is weird, because it's all… put away, nice and neat and in order, just like you would have done it. It's weird. But, you decide to sit down on your bed and finally read those rules.

_Hope's Peak Academy is currently functioning under __**new management.**__ The rules of graduation have been altered a bit. _

_1\. In order to graduate, a student must kill another student and not let others know that they did. _

_2\. There will be a brief period of investigation, and then a 'school trial' where the class must try and figured out who is the culprit._

_3\. If the culprit is not found, the culprit graduates and the rest of the students are executed. _

_4\. If the true culprit is found guilty, however, only the culprit is executed, and the rest of the student body can continue living their School Life of Mutual Killing. _

_As well as this, there are a few other rules. _

_5\. Lights in the hallway go out at 10:00 P.M. The cafeteria will also be locked at this time. _

_6\. No males are allowed in the female changing room, and vice versa. _

_7\. Rooms are soundproof, but that doesn't mean that you are free to do whatever you want. We have cameras. _

You finish reading those when there's a knock on your door. Smiling a little to yourself at the wording of the last rule, you get up to answer it.

It's Cronus Ampora.

"Have you read these?" he asks, biting down hard on the end of his cigarette. You blink and just sort of watch him. "Like cameras are going to stop me from getting laid. I'd be a great pornstar."

"Uh," you say. "Why are you here?"

He blinks. "Yeah, right, you're the only one around here that's been halfway decent to me except Vantas, and I do _not _want to go to him with that problem. He'd definitely lecture me, and Porrim doesn't like me enough to pull him away. Ugh. At least I got a room between two hotties. Latula and Roxy, can you imagine? Like, wow, I'd bang either one of them."

You stand there in awkward silence, feeling extremely uncomfortable. Thankfully, Latula comes down on Mituna's skateboard a few minutes later and completely takes him out.

You take the opportunity to slip out of your room and try to find Roxy. You want to do some exploring, too – some real detective work. This should be fun.

* * *

**And here's the second chapter! The first victim should die within the next few chapters, so keep an eye out!**


	3. Chapter 3

You eventually find Roxy in the recreation room, fiddling with a gaming console. You stand there for quite a while before she notices you.

"Oh, hi Janey!" she says. "I was just trying to hook this up. It's broken, but I'm piecing it together with all these other broken ones. When we get it done, wanna join me?"

"I don't really play games," you say. "I was going to go explore and try to figure this place out."

You'd feel weird asking her, but Roxy is already proving to be a fantastic friend, because she stands up, dusts off her skirt, and sends you one of those endearing grins. "I'll come with, if you want."

"Thanks, yeah," you say, blushing a little, and she pulls you along by the waist, out of the recreation room and into the hallway.

"We should start at the pool. See if anyone decided to use it yet," Roxy says, and you blush again. You don't quite feel comfortable in a swimsuit. She apparently notices your discomfort, because she continues. "But we don't have to."

"Let's start with the library," you say, and she nods. The two of you make your way to the library, nearly getting run down by Latula once. Thankfully, Cronus Ampora is nowhere to be found.

The library is mostly empty, apart from Dirk Strider and Rufioh Nitram combing the shelves. "A shitload of shitty contemporary," Dirk mutters as you pass him. "And we can't find a single damn manga."

"Let's split up," Roxy says, and she's eyeing Dirk so intensely that you get a little uncomfortable. "I'll take D-Stri's side, you poke around over there. Unless you want some of th-"

"No thank you," you say. You're much more interested in Jake than either of those two, and you figure that if Dirk is here, then maybe Jake's nearby, too. And, from his title as Super High School Adventurer, he'd probably be in the dark, dusty corners of the library.

So, you head back there, coughing a little when you accidentally knock over a pile of books and send a cloud of dust into the air. After a coughing fit and a few sneezes, someone presents a handkerchief to you. You take it, eyes watering too much to see who it is. Once you can see who it is, however, you blush.

"I-I'll wash it and-"

"Nonsense!" Jake English says. "It wouldn't be gentlemanly of me to demand it back. I insist you keep it."

"Thanks," you say, blushing. He grins an absolutely wonderful and clueless and adorable grin at you. "Are you here with Dirk?"

"That outstanding chap? Why, yes, although he appears to have found a new buddy," Jake said. "Similar interests, and all that. Are you here with my girl Roxy?"

"Yeah," you say. You can't stop staring at his shorts. They're really. Short. And they look quite nice on him.

"Fantastic lass, she is," Jake said. You wonder how he can have all of these opinions on all of these people so quickly, then wonder if he's that naïve to think that everyone's wonderful. You certainly don't think that everyone's wonderful.

"We're looking around," you say, trying to save yourself. "Trying to figure out what's going on – oh, darn it!"

You tried to lean casually against a table but it collapsed. He makes a sound of surprise and catches you, one hand on your back, the other under your elbow.

You're fairly certain that your head is on fire.

"You should be more careful!" he said. "Wouldn't want to crack your pretty little skull open, would you?"

Your eyes go to the skull on his shirt.

"Skulls are such a fu- Dirk! Dirk! Oh for frigs flipping sake, he's not listening to me. Stay here, will you?"

With that, he hurries off. You would stay there, but you'd rather explore a little more. Find out the _real _mysteries of this school.

Unfortunately, the only thing you find is Roxy, crawling around, looking for her earring. You help her, and then she dusts herself off and pulls you toward the changing rooms. "I'm sick of all these boys, Janey, let's go swimming!"

You don't really even have time to decline. The two of you find swimsuits – you're a bit embarrassed, looking for a swimming suit with Roxy, who is so tiny you look like a whale beside her, but they are school issued swimming suits, so it's not like you're in bikinis. They're one-pieces, and stretchy, and there are lots of sizes. They accommodate for everyone, it seems.

Roxy talks even when she's naked, it seems. You're facing the wall and trying to not freak out while she just throws off her clothes and chatters on and on about how cute Jake is and how cute Dirk is and how much she's looking forward to getting that Xbox fixed and how she might invite Latula to try it out with her?

"I wonder if Meenah's here," you say. "Didn't she say she wanted to find a pool?"

"_Gawd_, I hope not," Roxy says. You agree. She tried to take the leadership position so harshly. Dirk tried to lead, too, but he's a lot… different from her, somehow.

It's almost worse than you expected. Aranea Serket is reclining at the side of the pool. Meenah was crouched on the deep end of the pool, clad in a bikini that was definitely _not _school-issued.

And, of course, Cronus Ampora is leaning against the wall outside the changing rooms, grinning even though he has a bruise forming on his collarbone. "Hello ladies," he says. Roxy ignores him. She pulls you into the pool, and you shriek a little. She laughs.

You catch Cronus out of the corner of your eye walking the perimeter of the pool, gaze flicking from Meenah to Aranea to you and Roxy. He pauses at a collection of pool noodles and other floating devices and runs his hand down one. He looks to be thinking pretty hard, actually. Then he sidles up to Meenah and puts a hand on her shoulder.

She flips him into the pool. He comes up sputtering about his hair and his cigarette and she laughs at him. You giggle a little too. Roxy's lips are curled into a sort of grimace.

"Doesn't it suck that all total assholes are hot?" she asks. You study Cronus. He's no Jake. Or even Dirk, who you have to admit has muscle. But Cronus is… he's fairly attractive, you'd say. Not right now, with his hair falling out of its pompadour and face spotty red, and he's unimpressively scrawny, but you guess…

"Don't tell me you like him."

"Oh God no," Roxy says. "I'm very committed to the idea of me and Dirky in a relationship. Even though he's totally setting off my gaydar. Which sucks. Hot guys are always assholes or gay."

You laugh a little when the Caliborn puppet pops out of nowhere. "You guys," it enunciates clearly. "Need to get out of the pool so you can see your first motive."

Roxy helps you out of the pool and he hands the both of you an envelope. Then he disappears. You open the envelope and peer inside.

It's just… a picture. On the back is a note from Calliope, written in a swirly script.

_Hello dearie!_

_ I wouldn't let him do a horrible thing for your first motive! Hopefully this won't drive any of you to murder, even if they are released to the public!_

_ Callie~_

It's an embarrassing picture, sure, but it's just twelve-year-old you pulling a face, with zits and braces and an unflattering outfit. Nothing you'd kill anyone over, even if you were embarrassed that they were released.

Beside you, Roxy snorts. "Wow," she said. "This is even kind of cute. Look."

She pushes her picture into your hands. It's a twelve-year-old Roxy, all skin and bones looking all snobby in a Ravenclaw scarf. "Harry Potter?" you say. She grins and nods.

"I think it's twelve-year-old picture day," she said.

"Hey, where'd Toolscar go?"

"Toolscar?" Roxy says.

"Ampora. I heard him call himself Dualscar, because of those weird things on his head," Meenah said. You glance around. Yeah, no sign of Cronus anywhere.

Huh.

* * *

**With Calliope there, motives probably won't get bad for a while. Because she still has **_**some **_**control.**


	4. Chapter 4

The rest of the day goes fairly smoothly. You spend quite a bit of time with Roxy, and then you contemplate baking some cookies, and eventually you retire to your room. You stare at the picture for a little bit before tucking it back in the envelope and putting it on the table by your bed. Sure, it's a little embarrassing, but no more embarrassing than what relatives put on Facebook. Either way, it's part of your history, so you can't understand how anyone would kill over it.

And like Roxy's, some of them have to be kind of cute. Not all of them are braces and acne and bad clothes.

You go to sleep with the assurance that nobody will die locked into your mind. You don't even know why you were worried in the first place.

But when you get up, there's this weird feeling in the air. You get up, you shower, you head to the cafeteria. Dirk's there, and so is Cronus. Neither of them look at the top of their game. Cronus has a pot of coffee next to him. It's half gone.

He gives you a lazy smile. "Hey, Jane," he says. "Me and Dirk here were just talking about-"

"She doesn't need to know what we were talking about," Dirk mutters, elbowing Cronus in the ribs. Cronus flinches away, pouring himself another cup of coffee. "Christ, how much can you drink in a morning?"

"Two or three pots, usually," Cronus says. He notices you looking and explains. "Shitty sleep schedule, kitten. I'm a _musician."_

"Right," Dirk says. You head into the kitchen to grab yourself some breakfast, debate making eggs or something but settle on Poptarts, and when you're back, Meenah's there, looking more shocked than you ever thought she could look.

"-and I'm pretty shore he's dead."

Hm. The puns even when death apparently rears its ugly head.

"What's going on?" you ask. Cronus looks at you, paler than usual.

"Meenah found Mituna dead in the pool," he says. His voice is flat, with none of the usual bravado or twists on his words that he usually has. He downs another cup of coffee.

"Who would kill someone?" you ask. "Especially _Mituna_? What has he done?"

Dirk shrugged, but he reaches back to make sure that his sword is there and stands up. "I'll go see what's going on."

"I'll come with you," you and Meenah say at the same time. Dirk looks at the both of you, eyebrow raised.

"No offense, but I'll probably do better on my own," he says, leaving quickly. You and Meenah look at each other, and a wordless truce passes between the two of you as you follow him out. Cronus is left staring into his coffee.

Aranea's standing outside of the girls' changing room with a hand cupped over her mouth. "I… I can't believe…"

"You saw him too?" Dirk asks. Aranea nods.

"I- I was looking for Meenah… figured she'd be in the pool…" she trails off. Dirk nods and pushes through the boys' changing room. You follow Meenah through the girls' changing room, and as soon as you step one foot into the pool area, a screen at the far end of the pool dings to life.

"You found a body. Congratulations."

It's Caliborn.

Dirk's sword comes out and it looks _wickedly_ real and _wickedly _sharp.

"Put it away," Caliborn says irritably. He clears is throat. "Figure out who did it or die."

With that, the monitor turns off and you're left staring at the dead body. Dirk swallows and glances at Meenah, who's still in her bikini. "Do you… do you want to…"

"Get him?" Meenah asks. She looks like she'd rather not, but she dives into the pool and heads over to get him. You've seen this scene unfold in so many detective stories, and now you, who are an amateur detective yourself, know exactly what to do.

"We need to collect everyone here," you say. You glance at Aranea, who's not doing much. "You should go find everyone."

Cronus appears at the door just as Aranea's pushing her way through. He glances at Mituna's body for half a second before looking away. "What about people tryin' to mess with the crime scene?" he asks.

"Right," Dirk says. "Guards. Horuss and… Rufioh?"

"Sounds good," you say. Meenah, who looks more and more like she's about to throw up, starts to lift the body out of the water. Her arms are shaking, which seems to have more to do with the fact that she's holding a dead body and less with the fact that it's heavy.

Dirk takes it and pulls it out of the water. "Right," he says. He looks at you. "You seem to know what you're doing."

"I'm an amateur detective," you say, totally aware of how stupid you sound. You survey the body anyway. Mituna seems like he's dressed for swimming – he's got swimming trunks on, and goggles around his neck. There's something underneath his fingernails – you feel a little squeamish to be touching a dead body, but you pick up his wrist anyway and look.

It looks like flesh. Like he was trying to hold onto someone, but couldn't manage it. The killer?

"He was clawing at whoever it was," you say without thinking. "Whoever it was… they've probably got these marks somewhere on them."

"Body search," Dirk says. "That what you're suggesting?"

"Well," you say. "Let's see if we can figure it out beyond that."

You stand up and look out, scanning the pool. There are several floaties scattered everywhere, spread out from where Mituna was found floating this morning. "I wonder…" you say, stroking where you would have a mustache if you had a mustache.

Before you can finish your thought, Calliope pops up beside you. You jump. Dirk lets out a rather unmanly shriek.

"I have a file with some information for you all!" she says. She pushes a piece of paper into your hands and disappears again. Dirk looks over your shoulder as the two of you read it. Cause of death was drowning, which you already know, and the murder took place at midnight the night before. Alright.

It's then that everyone else arrives. Kankri comes through first, followed by Roxy, whose eyes are wide as she sees the body. When Latula enters, she lets out a shriek that nearly makes your heart break in two.

She rushes toward him, kneeling beside the body and patting his cheeks, staring into his eyes. Her breath is hitching in her chest as she cries and says his name and tries to get him to wake up.

It's Jake that leads her away, you notice with a twinge of jealousy that shouldn't be there. "C'mon, lass," he says. "We've got to find out who killed him."

She turns and cries into his shirt, though he's actually an inch or so shorter than her.

Dirk clears his throat and takes the paper from you. "Right," he says. He waves the paper, a little awkward. "So, what we've decided so far. He died at midnight, from drowning. Meenah found his body this morning, and brought us up here. He's got flesh under his fingernails, probably the killer's. Horuss and Rufioh, if you two could guard the body…?"

"Huh?" Rufioh asks, head whipping up. He looks at Horuss nervously. Horuss smiles back. Rufioh swallows. "I… I guess, man…"

Dirk nods. "Okay. So, next, I think… locker rooms?"

"There's probably evidence inside," you say, brightening a little. You head for the boy's locker room and pull open the door. It's a little weird, being in the boy's locker room, but you decide that if it's all in the name of finding answers, it'll be fine. Dirk and Meenah are right behind you. Roxy pops in a few seconds later.

"Wow, welcome to boy land," she says, managing a sort-of giggle. You glance around. It's pretty basic. Lockers, benches, showers.

The garbage can. You should check that out first.

Inside are Mituna's clothes and a wet cigarette, probably from when Cronus was pulled into the pool yesterday. You pull out Mituna's clothes and hand them to Roxy. "Check through those," you say. She snaps off a salute and crouches down to go through them.

Dirk's checking the lockers, and Meenah's just sort of poking around. She looks sort of lost without Aranea next to her, but the last you saw of Aranea… well, she never came back to the pool after finding everyone.

You wonder if she knows something.

"You guys keep looking here," you say. "I'm going to try to find Aranea. She never came back."

"I'll come with," Meenah says, and though you're still absolutely sure that the two of you will never really get along, you're glad for some sort of company.

It's time to talk to Aranea Serket.

* * *

**So, this will be updated every Wednesday until August!**


	5. Chapter 5

You find Aranea in the library, buried among stacks and stacks of books.

When she sees the two of you coming, she pales and buries her face in _The History of the Stock Market._

You stride forward with your borrowed detective confidence and slam your hand down on the table. Your voice comes out a little deeper than you expected. "What did you see last night?"

"Huh," Meenah says after a brief pause. "Beech has gone cray-zy."

You clear your throat and manage a slightly awkward smile. "You seem like you saw something last night," you said. "It has to be detrimental to us solving the mystery of who killed Mituna Captor."

Aranea takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. After a few moments, she opens them again. "It was Dirk Strider."

Both you and Meenah stare. Aranea swallows and goes on.

"I was up here almost all night – I read until eleven thirty, and then when I started to go down, I saw Dirk head down the stairs in front of me. He was drying his hair off with a towel. He went straight back to his room. I waited for another ten minutes to see if anyone else was coming, and then I went back to my room. I didn't think much of it then, but now…"

"Dear Cod," Meenah said, eyes wide. "Him? Reely? He doesn't…"

"He was spearheading the investigation today," you say, talking faster. It seems to make sense, though it doesn't really seem right. "And he didn't look like he'd gotten much sleep last night…"

"Neither did Cronus, though," Meenah points out.

"Yeah, but he gave a reason. He mentioned that he was a musician, that that kept him up – Dirk didn't say anything," you say. You chew on your thumbnail. It makes too much sense to be true.

Or are you just thinking that because Dirk's your friend?

After a few minutes, you sigh. "Thanks, Aranea," you say. "We need to do more investigation, but I think your testimony will prove very useful in the trial."

She nods and goes back to the book. You're a little miffed at her for not investigating with the rest of you, but you figure that she's been through a traumatic experience. Then again, so have the rest of you, but… either way, you're not going to try to force her to investigate.

"I want to check out those floaties in the pool," you say. "There was something weird about them."

"Well, yeah," Meenah says, shrugging. The two of you head through the girls' locker room into the pool. "They're… deflated… I could've sworn they were deflated."

The floaties are all floating in one corner of the pool. Rufioh and Horuss are nowhere to be seen. "Someone must have tampered with it," you say. You're getting a little excited despite yourself. "They saw that Rufioh and Horuss were gone, and…"

Someone taps on your shoulder and you turn around. It's Meulin and Kurloz. Meulin grins widely at you, and Kurloz signs something.

"Purrloz says that they must have tried to make it seem like 'Tuna tried to swim without them by himself!" she shrieks. You glance at Kurloz, and he nods. You kind of wonder what their situation is, but refrain from asking.

"Where the shell are Rufioh and Horuss?" Meenah asks, kicking idly at one of the floaties. You notice that she's still wearing her bikini.

Rufioh staggers out of a small storage room off the end of the pool, blushing furiously, clothes askew. Horuss follows him, keeping his eyes on the ground.

"Well fuck," Meenah says, for once without a fish or nautical themed pun. Ten seconds later, of course, they're back. "These two buoys decided to make out instead of watching the crime scene."

"Yeah…" Rufioh says, rubbing the back of his neck. "Sorry about that… hey… weren't those deflated before?"

"I don't remember," Horuss says, frowning. "It's certainly possible. But if they were always like this, isn't it a possibility that Captor just tried to swim when he couldn't?"

"That's what the murderer wants us to think," Dirk says from the doorway of the boys' locker room. You think back to what Aranea said and shudder a little despite yourself. "No, they definitely took advantage of when you two decided to go off and do your own thing instead of watching the crime scene."

"Yeah… sorry about that…" Rufioh says. Dirk sighs.

"Either way, why don't we switch one of you guys out?"

"I'll watch with Rufioh," Meenah says, diving into the pool and surfacing. "Nothing crime-related on the shallow end, right?"

Dirk rolls his eyes. "No, Meenah," he says. "Nothing crime-related over there."

With that, he turns to you. "Roxy found something in Mituna's clothes," he says. "Come on."

You follow him back into the boys' locker room, Kurloz and Meulin right behind you. Horuss, apparently, has decided to continue watching with Rufioh, Meenah there or not.

Roxy's sitting on the floor with Mituna's clothes spread out in front of her. Sitting on top of them is a carton of cigarettes.

"That…" you were about to say, 'almost gets you off the hook', but then you remember that Dirk doesn't exactly know that he's under suspicion. Instead you clear your throat and continue. "Cronus is the only one who… well, doesn't smoke, but has cigarettes, right?"

"That I know of," Roxy says. She glances around. "Any of y'all smoke?"

Kurloz gives a half-shrug and signs something.

"He doesn't smoke cigarettes!" Meulin chirps. "Me neither!"

You swallow. "Where's Cronus?" you ask.

"He said something about checking out the trash room," Dirk says. He glances at the cigarettes again. "I'll… I'll come with you."

He seems a little worried about something, though you can't be sure what. You grab the cigarettes from Roxy – you can use them somehow when questioning Cronus. "Okay," you said, smiling as well as you can under the circumstances. "Let's…. well, let's go question us an Ampora!"

Dirk rolls his eyes, but the two of you head off, you still feeling a little weird about the whole thing.

* * *

**I'm thinking one more chapter of investigation, and then down to the trial!**


	6. Chapter 6

You run into Cronus on your way to the trash room. He adjusts the sleeves of his leather jacket and gives the two of you a smile. "Yeah?"

You hold up the cigarettes wordlessly.

Cronus's eyes widen. "You got Latula to give them back to you?"

You blink. "What?"

"Yeah, she took them the last time she ran into me on her skateboard," Cronus says, taking them from you and picking one out. As always, it stays unlighted. "Weird how you got her to give 'em back, but-"

"They were in Mituna's clothes," Dirk says. Cronus looks confused and a little angry.

"She gave them to _him_? They could've-"

"He's dead, Ampora, and there are bigger things to worry about than what could have happened to your cigarettes that you don't even smoke," Dirk snaps. "Did you find anything in the trash room?"

You get why Dirk's so angry. You'd thought that you were close to solving the mystery, too. Or maybe he's mad because…

You don't want to think of it as a possibility, but he could be mad because he did it and those cigarettes took the suspicion off of him. Not that he knew that the suspicion was on him in the first place, but…

"Nah," Cronus says, giving a half-shrug. "Rufioh has trash duty right now, you know, so I got the key from him and poked around a little bit. I mean. Not that anyone could get in there without him, but… I dunno. Seemed like the thing to do."

Dirk breathes out, still visibly angry. "Right," he muttered.

"Also, I need to talk to you, chief," Cronus says, focusing implicitly on Dirk. If you're seeing this correctly, both of them are slightly pinkish. You look between them and decide that you want to get out of there as soon as possible.

Your only thought as you walk away is _Roxy was right._

You run into Roxy again just before the one of those monitors buzzes on. There's a hurried hello, and then Calliope begins speaking.

"Alright, loves, investigation time is over," she says. "Please head to the red door on the first floor. The trial will commence shortly!"

Roxy grabs your hand and the two of you head down to the red door. Jake and Latula are there. Latula is still clutching his shirt. He looks more than a bit confused with the situation. He gives you a nod as you enter.

You wait for the rest of them to show up – next is Rufioh, who looks just as flustered as when you saw him earlier, and right after him come Horuss and Damara, who are glaring daggers at each other. Meenah shows up next, still in her bikini with a towel around her neck. When Kankri shows up and sees her, he looks on the verge of a speech, but Porrim claps a hand over his mouth and drags him to a corner of the room.

"Dirk'll be here in a bit," Cronus says as he swaggers in, grinning widely. There's a cigarette clamped between his teeth. Aranea comes in after him, glancing around nervously before taking a wall to lean against. Meulin and Kurloz arrive together, signing at each other enthusiastically.

Dirk is the last to arrive. He glances around. "We're all here?"

"Yep!" Cronus says. His grin widens as he looks at Dirk. Dirk won't meet his eye, and Roxy sighs.

"I was right," she says.

Caliborn pops up right behind Cronus and he shrieks. There's a sort of chuckle that goes around the room, though everyone's too tense to really laugh at him. Except Meenah, who nearly falls over laughing.

"Get in the damn elevator," Caliborn grumbles, and the fifteen of you file in like the obedient students you are. The ride down is silent, apart from the occasional gasp or sobbing sound from Latula, who is still clutching to Jake like her life depends on. You can't help but still feel a little jealous, no matter what's going on.

True, someone's just died.

True, you just met Jake, anyway.

True, your entire jealousy is completely stupid.

And yet it's still there.

All of you gasp when you see the courtroom. It's got sixteen places for people to stand – what you suppose was supposed to be Mituna's spot is filled by a giant, black-and-white picture on a stand.

It has a giant red X on it.

You can't help but shudder.

"Find your spots," Caliborn mutters. He pops onto what you suppose must be the judge's seat, and there's a small scramble to find your areas. You end up between Rufioh and Dirk, who still looks flustered, but not… not worried that you'll find him out.

He can't know that Aranea saw him. Drying his hair off, of all things… it has to be him, no matter how much you don't want to believe it. It's weird to think, after such a short amount of time, that you think he's your friend, but… you do think he's your friend.

You also think he killed Mituna Captor.

You suck in a deep breath. Rufioh glances at you, curious. "You alright?" he asks. You haven't given him much thought, besides the fact that he seems to be very popular with both boys and girls – now, looking at him, you can sort of see it, he's not bad-looking, and there's just some sort of aura about him that makes you kind of want to go out with him – but the concern on his face is somewhat comforting.

"I'm good," you say. "I just think I know who it is, and I don't want to believe it."

Rufioh nods. "Yeah… yeah, I dunno…" he says. He laughs. "Man… too bad I was distracted… could've caught the girl blowing up the floaties…"

"Girl?" you say.

"Well, yeah…" Rufioh says, shrugging. "I mean… Dirk says that nobody except him went through the boys' locker room… so they must've gone through the girls'… so it had to be a girl, right?"

"A girl, or someone who didn't mind, or…" you don't want to say it, but Rufioh's eyes widen a fraction and you know that he knows what you think.

"Do you-"

Before he can finish, Calliope begins explaining the rules.

"Basically, what you need to do is debate until you are fairly certain you know who it is, and then put it all to a vote!" she chirps. Caliborn takes over.

"If you catch the culprit, they get executed. If you don't, you get executed, and the one who did it gets to walk free."

You swallow. That's a lot of pressure. Meenah stretches. You think it's entirely inappropriate, considering she's still in her bikini.

"Whatever, let's get this started."

Caliborn nods and settles back on his chair. "Go for it."

* * *

**I don't know how many chapters the trial's going to be, but at least two, I think. Either way, it should be fun!**


	7. Chapter 7

The trial starts in silence.

"So," Dirk says. "Who was it?"

You glance at him out of the corner of your eye. Rufioh copies your look. Then Latula speaks up, pointing directly at Meenah. "It was her!"

"Wha-a-at?" Meenah asks. "What the shell, girl, it wasn't me! I found the kid-"

"Exactly! And you're always swimming! There's no way it wasn't you!" Latula says, crossing her arms. Meenah just sort of looks at her. "Nobody would kill someone in a _pool_ but you."

"Or anyone who was smart enough to realize that Mituna can't swim!" Meenah snaps. "It wasn't me!"

"No," you say, shaking your head. "It wasn't Meenah."

"Prove it."

"First of all, you're only saying that because she's always in the pool," you say. "Also… there's the floaties being inflated in some weird attempt to get rid of evidence. Halfway through the investigation. Meenah was with me at the time. Roxy, you were in the boys' locker room, weren't you?"

"That's right!" Roxy says, sending you a sort-of smile.

"And nobody went through there, right?"

"Right."

"So, they would have gone through the girls' locker room. And who would think to do that, except a girl, who would do it naturally? Unless…"

You look straight at Dirk. It takes him a little bit to notice you, but when he does, he jumps and makes a face. "Me? You're saying it was me? Just because of some floaties-"

"No," you say, shaking your head. "I have some more evidence. Aranea?"

Aranea takes a deep breath, eyes flicking to Dirk nervously, and begins.

"Last night, I was upstairs fairly late. I was reading, because I was a little bit freaked out and the library was helping me calm down. I went downstairs at around eleven-thirty… in front of me was Dirk. He didn't see me. He was heading downstairs and toweling off his hair. There's no way he came anywhere but from the pool."

"B-but- I-" Dirk stutters. He's bright red, but it seems more like he's embarrassed than anything. Embarrassed? That doesn't make any sense.

"Dirk?" you say. "If you have anything to say, now is the time to say it."

Dirk swallows, covering his face in his hands. "I was with… I was with Cronus."

You swear, it gets so quiet that you could hear a pin drop. Finally, Meenah speaks.

"Water you talking about?" she asks. "Like… _with _Cronus?"

Dirk swallows.

"Oh dear cod."

"_Wow._"

"Him?"

"I think I'm going to throw up."

Cronus looks hurt. "Hey, just because you guys can't see the massive appeal that I have, it doesn't mean everyone can't?"

"I was frustrated," Dirk says.

"Sexually frustrated," Cronus says, as though we don't all know.

"He's the only one I knew that would just do stuff without asking questions. We met up in a classroom on the second floor. We showered at the pool afterwards, because the water's not off there at night. That's why my hair was wet."

"Also, I wasn't about to pass up Dirk showering," Cronus says, somehow winking at literally everyone in the room. "But, yeah, I ain't about to deny that we got it o-"

"That's enough," Dirk says, flushing.

"Why wasn't Cronus with you?" you ask, bothered by this whole situation. "When you went downstairs?"

"I didn't want anyone to see us together," Dirk mutters, crossing his arms and staring at the floor. "He was going to come down later."

"I waited for at least twenty minutes, to see if anyone else was going to show up," Aranea insists. "I didn't see him."

"I went up to the music room for a while," Cronus says, grinning a grin that seems kind of off… but that just might be you not wanting it to have been Dirk. "Strider's _inspiring."_

"Well, then it had to be Meenah," Latula bursts out. "She killed Mituna this morning, before we had the chance to get up, and then decided to rush in and tell everyone she found the body!"

"No…" you say slowly. "There has to be something… something else… something that we're not catching, or remembering."

Cronus adjusts the sleeves of his jacket again and shrugs one shoulder. "Dunno, as nice as that bikini is, Meenah makes the most sense right now."

"When did you guys split up?" you ask Cronus. Cronus shrugs again.

"Dunno, around eleven thirty, like Dirk said."

"It matches up…" you say, but something about Cronus's alibi really seems too clean. His story is really well put together, you have to admit, from talking about being up because of music last night at breakfast and using the same story now, but…

There has to be something else.

"The cigarettes," you remember, snapping your fingers. "Latula, did you take them from Cronus?"

Latula swallows. "I don't remember," she says. "I probably did. Why?"

"Roxy found a pack in Mituna's clothes in the locker room," Dirk says. He seems more in control now that the focus is off of him and Cronus hooking up. "If you stole them from Cronus and then Mituna got a hold on them… that works. But if not, it means that Mituna stole them from Cronus before Cronus killed him-"

"Don't say that I killed him with that much conviction!" Cronus interjects, frowning. "Why would I _kill _someone?"

"That's a good point," you say, slamming your hands down on the wood in front of you. "The motive. Why would anyone kill someone? Is it just to leave, or is it because of the motive?"

"It's a pretty shitty motive," Dirk says. "Embarrassing, yeah, but who would kill someone over that?"

"But if it's to leave…" Aranea says. She glances around at all of you nervously. "I could see someone doing it."

"Who would want to leave that badly?" Cronus asks. "Eventually, one of you has to fall for me."

Horuss speaks up. "We should all show our pictures," he says.

"Why?" Cronus asks, nose wrinkling. "Gotta say, not a fan of that prospect."

"Why not?" you ask. "Is it because… you killed Mituna Captor to make sure that your photo didn't get out?"

"No, I figure I won't ever see them again," Cronus says, shrugging. He tugs at the sleeves of his leather jacket. "It doesn't matter. I mean, most of the people outside have already _seen _me at my worst, ya dig? I don't want you guys seeing it, because I'll be around you forever."

"We don't have a very high opinion of you anyway," Meulin says, translating for Kurloz's signing. "It's not like it would make much difference."

Cronus glares.

"Either way!" Jake says, rubbing his hands together. "I say we just go on ahead and show them! I'll go first-"

"No, there's something I just remembered," Meenah says. She crosses her arms and stares straight at Latula. "Something that says that it definitely can't be me."

You glance at her, confused. "What?"

"You and Dirk found it, didn't you? The skin underneath Mituna's fingernails. I'm practically naked. Unless he groped me to get that under there, it can't be me," Meenah says, satisfied with herself.

"Who says he didn't?" Cronus mutters.

"Do you want me to prove it?"

"Yes!" Cronus says, a little too enthusiastic for your taste. Meenah makes a face at him, and he grins back.

"I don't think that's necessary," you say hurriedly, because you don't need a buck-naked Meenah in the courtroom. "But, still. That's a valid point. Whose skin is it underneath Mituna's fingernails?"

* * *

**Next chapter is conclusion &amp; execution, probably!**

**also did you think i was going to do this without shoving in some crodirk do you even know me**


	8. Chapter 8

Dirk throws his shirt off faster than you can blink. Cronus whistles. Meenah looks interested. Rufioh tries and fails to look objectively. Dirk turns around, giving you all a full view of his torso, and then puts his shirt back on.

"So," he said. "Nothing. I think we can all agree that Mituna grabbed onto their shoulders or arms, right?"

"It's probable," you say slowly. And what he said is true. He's completely bare, apart from a few hickeys on his collarbone, which you can probably attribute to Cronus. You glance at him. He wiggles his eyebrows. "Well… I don't think I'm going to take off my shirt, but I'll push up the sleeves as far as they'll go."

You roll up your sleeves so that the only part of your arms and shoulders not showing is a small strip at the base of your neck. Apart from a few burns on your wrists, you're clean, too.

One by one, everyone shows off their lack of scars. Rufioh, like Dirk, has a few hickeys – and so does Horuss, though his are leading down to a place that you really don't want to think about. Most of the boys take off their shirts, and most of the girls just roll up their sleeves. You guess that if you can't find it out by this, you'll have to take a look at hips or something… which means showing your stomach… but there are still two people that haven't shown their arms.

Cronus and Kurloz.

"Kurloz. Cronus," you say. "Everyone else has."

Cronus swallows. Kurloz shrugs, then signs something. Meulin translates.

"He says he has to take off his whole suit if you want to see his arms!" she chirps. "If you're okay with that, fine!"

"Is he wearing underwear?" Dirk asks, eyebrows drawing together.

"Maybe!"

You sigh and rub your temples. "Just do it, Kurloz."

He strips and, thankfully, is wearing underwear – and, apart from a lot of old scars that you really don't want to know about – he's clean.

Everyone looks to Cronus, who laughs nervously and tugs down his sleeves. "I- uh –I was – messing with a guitar, and-"

"Just take off your jacket, Cronus," you say. He takes a step backward, and Cronus has him around the neck before you can blink. Dirk heads over, wincing a little, and pulls off Cronus's jacket.

Cronus's arms are covered in crescent-shaped marks, and a few of the deeper ones have band-aids slapped over them. He makes a noise in the back of his throat – which, admittedly, might be the fact that he's turning purple by now – and struggles weakly.

"Let him go, Horuss," Dirk says. He looks torn. Horuss lets go of Cronus, who collapses on his hands and knees and retches.

"God-" he sputters out "-that was- uncalled for- _fuck."_

"Why'd you do it, Cronus?" you ask.

"I- I- I didn't-"

"Lay it all out for him!" Meenah suggests. "Everything. Tell us how he did it."

You swallow, nod, and begin.

…

_The guilty headed out at around eleven, aiming for an upstairs classroom. Earlier that day, he'd cornered Dirk Strider and gotten a positive response – and now he was going to make good on that positive response._

_ Dirk was already in the classroom at that point, and the two of them engaged in… well, I think we all know what they engaged in. They headed to the showers and cleaned up. Dirk went downstairs. That's when Aranea, who had been doing some late-night reading, saw him. She was nervous, so she hid at the bottom of the stairs to wait and see if anyone else would come down. After about twenty minutes – it was about eleven-fifty by then, she went to bed. _

_ The guilty got Mituna Captor up to the pool, either by knocking on his door and inviting him up for a swim or slipping him a note earlier, and Mituna went. At this point, Mituna probably stole the guilty's cigarettes out of their clothes. _

_ Mituna went into the pool with floaties, but the guilty deflated them. Mituna clawed at the guilty, trying to get a hold of him, but the guilty managed to push him off and swim to safety, while Mituna drowned. The guilty headed downstairs – it was a little after midnight by now, if the time of death is anything to go by – and went into their room. _

_ The next morning, they covered up their injuries with a leather jacket and headed downstairs. That's when Meenah found the body – she'd gone for an early morning swim and, lo and behold, there was Mituna Captor, dead. _

_ We went up to investigate, and while everyone was elsewhere, Rufioh and Horuss… busy elsewhere… they snuck through the girls' locker room and re-inflated the floaties in an attempt to cover it up. _

_ Isn't that right… Cronus Ampora?_

…

Cronus sputters and shakes his head. "N-no, why would I go through the girls' locker room-"

Meenah snorts. "Buoy, you'd go through the girls' locker room even without a purpose," she says. Cronus deflates before your very eyes, on his hands and knees, forehead pressing the floor.

"Why?" you ask. "Why did you… did you want to get out that bad?"

"No," he says, voice muffled. "I just – that picture would've _ruined _my rep, you know? I couldn't ever – couldn't ever be a famous musician with _that _floating around. If it woulda been anything else… I would've been happy to stay here for a little bit, you know? I figured it… it had to end eventually. But my music… and… and that _picture…"_

"This picture?" Caliborn says. He sounds bored. You glance up, and a projector flickers on, projecting a picture of a twelve-year-old decked out in full Slytherin garb, grinning with a mouthful of braces, slightly premature acne popping up around his nose and forehead, huge round glasses with thick frames balanced on his nose. He's as scrawny as he is now – his clothes are baggy, he has a bruise on his cheek, but he looks happy.

"Aw," Roxy says after a brief pause. "Another Harry Potter kid. Hogwarts represent."

Cronus makes a choked sound in the back of his throat, digging his forehead into the ground. "It looks so _stupid."_

"You killed over _that?" _Dirk says. "Christ, what the hell is your problem? I could understand having to get out of here. I could. But that _picture? _In mine, I have a fucking _Evangelion _shirt on. I'm wearing _My Little Pony _hat. It has _Rainbow Dash wings on it. _And you didn't see me offing someone who can't even fight back because of that. Now I get why nobody wants to sleep with you. And now I'm sorry that I did."

He turns away, hugging himself. Cronus is crying by now, arms cover his head, and you don't think you've ever seen someone so pathetic and vulnerable.

"Alright, if you idiots are done," Caliborn says. "This douche is getting executed."

Cronus looks up, eyes wide. "Wh-what?"

"Executed, dumbass."

Cronus swallows; you can see his throat ripple. You can see the sweat roll down his temple. You're almost hyper-aware of everything going on at this moment – execution. You wonder how it'll happen. You wonder if you'll throw up. You wonder how Dirk will take it. Everything is sort of… numb. Maybe it won't hit you until later.

Then you realize that you're crying.

It's weird, but you think it's just the situation – Cronus is being pulled out of the room now, and the rest of you are shunted after him. _To watch? _You don't know. You go through a door, and there's a barbed-wire fence that the fourteen of you stay on the other side of. Cronus is thrown through.

He stands up, glancing around. Despite the barbed wire, it looks fairly urban – he stumbles across a paved street, and then a police car, driven by Caliborn, nearly hits him. Caliborn gets out, aims with a gun, and shoots him… one… two… three… times. It doesn't seem vital. He screams.

He's bleeding, he stumbles over to a brick wall and leans against it, gasping for breath in-between screams. Caliborn looks like he's going to shoot again – you can hear some of your classmates sobbing, you hear someone throw up, and next to you, Dirk Strider stands, still as a stone.

Cronus seems… almost happy, though.

But then Caliborn waves his gun, and a huge cardboard wizard comes out of the ground, pointing a wand at Cronus. Cronus hides his face in his arms, sobbing and screaming and pleading and someone threw up again and then the wizard shoots him in the chest with a green bolt of something and it's all over.

* * *

**So, next we'll have a breather chapter, and then I think the next motive will probably be introduced! :)**


	9. Chapter 9

The next morning, all of you meet in the cafeteria except Latula.

Almost all of you look exhausted and terrified. Dirk hasn't spoken a word. He's just staring into a cup of coffee, clutching it like if he doesn't, he'll die. Rufioh won't look at anyone after his initial awkward smile to everyone in the room. Even Meenah seems a lot more reserved than usual. You haven't heard a fish pun in the half an hour that the thirteen of you have been sitting in the dining hall.

Eventually, Roxy speaks.

"So this is really real, huh?" she says. She looks around at you with a wavery smile. She's clutching a juice box in her hands. Earlier, when you first came into the dining hall, she was scraping fingernail polish off of her fingernails, and there's a little pile of pink nail polish shavings on the table in between her plate and her. "W-we're killing each other."

"It doesn't scare me as much as the fact that that thing chose to just do this without any trigger warnings whatsoever," Kankri objects. He looks absolutely livid. Porrim puts a hand on his shoulder, but he shrugs her off. "No, Porrim, this is serious. As well as that, I heard you throwing up, Jake, what if one of us was severely emetophobic? Give some _warning-_"

"Shut up," Dirk says. His voice is raw. Kankri looks at him, stunned. "Nobody cares about what you're saying. Two people just _died. _That's what we're worried about. That, and what the next motive is, and who's going to take the bait, and who's going to end up dead."

He looks around at all of you, meets your eyes, and continues.

"But I'm not going to let that happen," he says. He stands up, chair scraping across the dining hall floor as he flings it backward. "We're setting down ground rules. Things that aren't specified in the handbook."

The twelve of you just sort of look at him dumbly. He powers on.

"First up, I think we can all agree that nobody's going to go out at nighttime again. We stay in our rooms. Second, stick with a buddy unless you're in your room-"

"Hold up, Strider, this death school or guppy camp?" Meenah asks. "We don't need _buddies. _The nighttime rule is good. We'll stick with that. And maybe we shouldn't go off alone all that often. But buddies? That's taking it a little far."

Dirk sucks in his cheeks and sighs. "Then what do you suggest?" he acts. "That we just sit back and let ourselves be killed? Why don't I just kill you right now, then?"

"Buoy, you are overreacting," Meenah says plainly. "Cronus went cray and offed Tuna-boy. Then he got executed in probably the most horrific display I've ever fucking seen. And I think that's scared people away from krillin', right?"

Dirk looks at all of you, and you're pretty sure he doesn't trust a single one of you. "Maybe," he says. Then he turns and stalks out of the room. Rufioh follows him, sending a quick glance to both Horuss and Damara. It appears that he's abandoning both of them for Strider which is, if not entirely unexpected, a little strange.

It's quiet for a little bit, then Roxy turns to you. "Hey, let's see how Latula's doing," she suggests. Jake sighs at the sound of this.

"I tried! She wouldn't even open the door."

"Maybe she needs a little girl time," Roxy says, then winks at you. She stands up, hooks an arm through yours, and pulls you away. The two of you stumble away, you not quite expecting her to move so fast or be so strong.

After heading through the dormitory halls, taking a quick, nervous glance at Cronus's now empty room, the two of you stand in front of Latula's door. Roxy knocks.

"La-tu-la!" she sings. "It's Roxy and Janey!"

There's no answer from the other side of the door and, after a few minutes, Roxy gets bored. She glances at Cronus's room. "I wonder if his door's unlocked," she says. She heads for it. You grab her hand.

"Don't-"

"Why not? I want to know more about him. There's gotta be a better reason he did what he did," Roxy says. She looks you straight in the eyes, and you honestly didn't think that she could look that determined. During the few days you've known her, she always… well, always just seemed like a happy-go-lucky ditz.

Though you guess she is a Super High School Level Hacker…

She turns the doorknob and flings the door open. Cronus's room is about as you would expect – a nice bedspread, clothes and porn magazines sitting out in plain sight, musical instruments, except…

Also inside is Latula, smashing Cronus's things.

You and Roxy just sort of stare for a few seconds, and then Roxy speaks. "Uh," she says. "Whatcha doing?"

"Therapy," Latula says, teeth gritted as she stomps on an electric keyboard. Roxy glances around the room. By now, it's basically destroyed, but she apparently sees something she wants, because she picks her way across the room and comes back with a computer. Latula reaches for it, but Roxy dances away. "Let me kill it. Let me fucking kill every last _bit _of this _bastard."_

"He's already dead," Roxy says. She's holding the computer close to her chest like a child. "I want to see what's on here."

"I already tried going on, he has a pas-"

"I'm a _hacker._"

Latula doesn't look happy, but she lets you go. You and Roxy exit Cronus's room as quickly as possible. Roxy peels away immediately, giving you an awkward smile. "I kind of want to check this out in my room. Is that cool with you?"

"Fine," you say. You don't know what you'll do if she's in her room, but maybe you can bake something. It's been a while, and it'll be a good distraction from what's going on.

So, you slip through the dining hall, which by now consists of only Jake and Aranea. You wouldn't exactly say that they're having a conversation, more like taking turns talking at each other about things that the other probably doesn't care about.

Funnily enough, Meenah's in the kitchen. She's baking.

"You can bake?" you ask, pulling an apron off of a hook and tying it around yourself automatically. Meenah glances over her shoulder.

"Of course," she says. "Super High School Level Heiress… of a baking corporation."

"Really?" you ask. She nods. You're actually the same – well, you're Co-Heiress of Betty Crocker, there's another one somewhere that you've never met – but your title is still just Baker. "Which one?"

"Betty Crocker," Meenah says. Then she pauses. "Co-Heiress, but the other one's never shown her fishy face."

"That's me, actually."

Meenah stares at you, then bursts out laughing. "_Reely_?"

You feel a little uncomfortable, but nod. She keeps laughing, only pausing once to take the pie out of the oven. She sets it to cool and leaves. "Take the kitchen for yourself, Co-Heiress!" she cackles as she leaves. "Imma hit the pool!"

You wonder how she can swim in a place that had just been a murder scene, and then you decide that there's no use thinking about that – this was, after all, meant to make you feel better. You'll just bake a cake and realize just how weird it is that you meet the other heiress of Betty Crocker at something like this.

* * *

**This is the last update until September, when the next motive will be announced!**


	10. Chapter 10

You wake up next morning to see Calliope perched above you. She smiles. You shriek and sit up, keeping your blanket gathered up around your neck. She jumps down to land lightly on the floor. "Please head the gym before going to breakfast!" she says. Her face seems to struggle with itself, and then she's back to normal. "But we're going to be revealing the next motive, though."

It feels like your heart has stopped. Another motive. What if it's a good one? You can't help but feel like two more people will be dead in the next few days, and you can't help but shiver at that.

Calliope sees your look and gives you what she apparently thinks is a reassuring smile. "It's harmless," she said. "Nobody will want to kill anyone. It's even more harmless than the last one."

You nod, but you're not quite convinced. She can think that, but doe she really have that much control over Caliborn? From what you've seen of him, you're pretty sure he just wants as much death as possible.

But you have to go.

You take a quick shower before getting dressed and heading down to the gym. Dirk is already there. It doesn't look like he slept at all the night before, and you sit beside him on the bleachers. He looks at you.

Wordlessly, you put a hand on his knee. He manages a half-smile, one side of his mouth quirking up. "I can't believe it's happening again," he said. His voice is rough. He lifts up his sunglasses to rub at his eyes. "It just feels like it's a fucking dream. A fucking nightmare that we can't wake up from. And so soon. We're getting another motive so soon."

You stay silent. Roxy bounds over then, dragging Jake behind her. She doesn't look like she slept much, either, but her lack of sleep seems to have made her a lot bouncier than usual. Her eyes are red-rimmed and she has dark shadows underneath them, but she's grinning and jittering like she's been up all night drinking energy drinks. Jake looks like he got a normal amount of sleep, and nods to you as he approaches.

"I was up all night on Ampora's laptop," Roxy says. She twitches a little and brushes hair out of her eyes. For the first time since you've seen her, her hair isn't casual messy and curly. It's kind of amazing. "And, wow, he had a lot of porn. And some interesting stuff that wasn't porn. And a lot of encrypted files that are running my program on them right now."

Dirk nods, but you can tell that he's not really listening. He rubs his eyes again, and you watch as everyone else comes in. Most everyone trickles in one at a time. Latula comes last. She looks even worse than yesterday.

Once you're all here, you look to the podium, expecting Calliope to pop out and give you something harmless. Something you won't have to worry about.

But Caliborn pops up. He scowls at all of you and clears his throat. "The last motive was _boring. _Someone died anyway, but it was so stupid. Almost as stupid as all of you. But _this _one's better, because that idiot bitch didn't make it up."

Dirk tenses, and you frown. You really hope that Calliope takes control right about now. You really hope that she does.

But she doesn't.

"If someone doesn't die in three days, I'm going to kill all of you."

With that, Calliope takes over. The room has been shocked into silence but Calliope, looking harried, doesn't take any note of that as she speaks.

"He won't, it's bad for-"

Caliborn takes over then. "I can and I will. The executions will be awesome."

After that, there's a brief struggle where they flip back and forth before both of them eventually just disappear. The fourteen of you look at each other and nobody's quite sure what to do. Finally, Meenah speaks.

"So," she says. "That the new motive or not?"

Dirk clenches his jaw and stands up. "I'll see if I can talk to them," he said. "There's a principal's office. They're probably in there. I'll fucking _demand _they talk to me."

He leaves, hands clenched into fists at his side. You look at Roxy, hoping for some normality, but she looks distracted. "Bad for?" she says to herself. She repeats those words a few times, and then notices you looking. She laughs. "Ha! I'm going to go back to opening up those encrypted files. See you later, Janey!"

Everyone trickles out except you and Jake. Jake is looking at you like he's expecting something, and you shift. You're suddenly aware of just how much bigger you are than him. True, this isn't all your fault, because he is weirdly tiny for a guy, but it still makes you feel a little self-conscious. "Do you want to go get something to eat?" he asks, finally, and you nod.

"I made a cake yesterday," you say. "There's probably some left."

He grins. "That sounds flipping fantastic!" He jumps a little before he heads off. You have to hurry to follow him, and by the time you get to the dining hall you're a little out of breath. He looks back at you and grinned. "Well, let's have some fucking finger-licking pastry!"

You blink a little, but nod.

The dining hall is fairly full. Meenah's talking to Aranea – it doesn't really look like more of a conversation, more like Meenah talking whenever she sees Aranea start to open her mouth to say something. Rufioh's sitting alone, with Horuss and Damara at separate tables flanking his. He looks awkwardly into his food. You feel sort of bad for him.

Jake pulls you through the dining hall and into the kitchen. You find the cake and cut two thick slices. He looks at it like it's the best thing in the world and claps you on the arm. "By golly, Miss Crocker, this looks amazing!"

You can't help but blush.

He keeps up the chatter as he gets a few plates, as well as two glasses of milk – "I find milk goes abso-fucking-lutely fantastic with cake!" – and forks. He digs around for ice cream, too, but apparently that is nowhere to be found. He sighs at this, but you think that, even with the additional stress of this new 'maybe motive', that might be a little much for breakfast. Also, your cake is so good you won't even miss the ice cream.

Not that you don't like ice cream. You do. Your cake is just too good for it.

Jake pauses, glances around, and heads for Meenah and Aranea's table. You feel your heart sink into your stomach as you follow him. You sort of like Meenah – you think you could, if she wasn't the thinner, prettier version of you who knows how to style her hair. You don't know enough about Aranea to really make a judgment just yet, but she does wear blue lipstick, and that can't be good.

You're about halfway through the cake when Roxy pokes her head through the door. "Guys? I think I found something important."

* * *

**And we're back!**


	11. Chapter 11

As soon as you're all gathered around, Roxy presents the group with a photo. You notice that the only one missing is Dirk – he must still be asking if the motive is the right one. Someone will have to notify him later of what was going on.

Then you see the picture.

It's unmistakably Dirk and Cronus – Dirk looks a little awkward, but Cronus is grinning like there's no tomorrow. They both look a little different than they did whenever you saw either of them – Dirk's hair is a little lighter, and Cronus is wearing glasses. You wonder if, maybe, they just took the picture when Cronus was wearing glasses, and the printout just made Dirk's hair just lighter, but then you look at Roxy and she shakes her head.

"This picture's been on there for a long time," she says. "I went way back to find this. I was gonna look through baby pictures, too, but I figured you guys would want to see this. Ampora had a lot of pictures, but most of them were selfies, and all of the ones that looked like they should be taken around the same time as this one… they're on lockdown."

She pauses, glances at all of you, and takes a deep breath before continuing.

"Also, they're dated at like two years in the future."

The shock is immediate on everyone's faces. You glance around, wondering if maybe someone could have doctored the date, they did stuff like that all the time on detective shows, but Roxy looks certain that it's real.

"Maybe it was Caliborn or Calliope's doing," she says, continuing like she hadn't just dropped a bomb on the group. "Caliborn, probably. But… I don't know. I'll keep going through his laptop, and if I find anything else, I'll contact you guys."

"Sounds like a good idea," Meenah says. She nods. "What do you all feel about showin' Dirk this? The whole situation seems a little fishy."

Rufioh chews on his lower lip with a ferocity that almost scares you. "I dunno… I mean… I want to trust him…"

"I don't think we should," Aranea says. She has her arms hugged over her chest like she might fall apart any second. "There's something weird about him. I don't want-"

"Aranea, might I remind you that 'weird' could be considered ableist language, and-"

"Shut it plankton-brain," Meenah snaps. Kankri blinks, looks offended, and opens his mouth again. "I said, _shut it._ Not one of us wants to listen to your shit right now."

Kankri really looks like he's going to go off on her, but Porrim slaps a hand over his mouth, gives the rest of the group a grim smile, and carts him off. "I'll be back once I put him in his room!" she calls over her shoulder.

You hear Kankri say something from beneath Porrim's hand that sounds suspiciously like "You're not my _mother_," and then the two of them are gone. You all glance around at each other, trying to figure out what to do next, when Meenah speaks.

"We'll keep it from Strider from now, but I guess if you find anything else, Lalonde, tell the group," she says. She tosses her shoulders back, adjusts her shirt, and turns to walk away. "Imma hit the pool. See you guppies later."

The rest of the group drifts away, and soon it's just you and Roxy. Roxy looks like she really wants to get back to Cronus's laptop, and you feel like you should just let her. "I'm going to go do something," you say. She gives you a smile.

"If you want me to come with, I can," she says, but you think it's fake. You think she's so engrossed in this project of figuring out Cronus Ampora's computer that she'd be looking at the clock if she was going to hang out with you.

"No, it's fine," you say. "I'll find someone to hang out with."

You go back to your room to collect yourself.

**FREE TIME START**

You decide to go see what's actually up with Damara – you've only been in this school for a few days, but you feel like you know everyone else way more than you know her, and, if you're being totally honest, she sort of freaks you out. Maybe if you get to know her better, get a little more information, you won't be so freaked out.

It takes a while of running up and down stairs before you find her in the hallway leading up to the third floor. You're breathing hard by this time, and she just sort of looks at you with her head tilted to the side and says something in Japanese.

"Hi," you say. "Do you want to hang out?"

A clear expression of surprise spreads across her face, and she nods doubtfully. "Yes," she says. Her voice is heavily accented, but you're glad that she can actually speak English. "We go have fun time."

You nod slowly. "Yeah," you say, and the two of you just sort of… walk around the school for a while. She mutters things in Japanese every so often, but mostly she speaks in, if not the greatest, understandable English. You think that she has a good time, but you're not so sure, because whenever you look at her and she's not looking at you, she looks sort of… sad. There's an undercurrent of anger there, too, and that part sort of scares you.

Eventually, the two of you stop, and you realize that you have some Japanese candy you snagged from the school store in your bag. You give it to her, and she takes it with raised eyebrows.

"It's not much," you say. "But here!"

"Thank you," she says. She suddenly sighs, and looks off to the side. "What boy Jane like?"

You think back on it – the obvious answer is Jake. The very obvious answer is definitely Jake.

"Jake, probably," you say. She wrinkles her nose and shakes her head.

"Bad choice," is all she says. "Type bad."

With that, she hurries away. You watch her go, more than a little confused. She's definitely had some bad romantic incidents in her past.

You shake your head clear and decide to go back to your room.

* * *

**So, I was starting to lose a little steam writing this story, and the little free time event seemed to brighten that up, so I was thinking that at the beginning of the next chapter we'd have another one! I used a random generator to get Damara, but if you guys want to leave in a review who you want to see next, I can use that! If not, I'll head back to the random generator. But, yeah, here we go!**


	12. Chapter 12

**FREE TIME START**

You decide that maybe Latula needs someone. So, you spend about half an hour scouring the school for her, searching everywhere at least twice, before you end up in front of her bedroom door. Maybe you should've looked here first, but you just didn't think about it. You knock as loud as you can, and after about four minutes of knocking, she comes to the door.

Her eyes are red-rimmed and her hair's a mess. Maybe this was a mistake.

"I can't talk right now," she says. Her voice is weary, and raw, like she's been screaming and is absolutely tired of it. "Sorry."

And then she slams the door in your face.

You turn to go find someone else, and eventually stumble across Porrim in the changing room for the bath-house. She smiles at you, and it's so weird to see her without Kankri. "Hi, Porrim," you say, and she nods back to you.

"Do you want to go into the sauna?" Porrim asks, piling her hair on top of her head and securing it in a bun. "I was thinking of doing so, and you could join me, if you like."

Do you want to spend some time with Porrim?

The answer is yes. You agree, and soon the two of you are sitting in the sauna, talking a bit, but mostly just enjoying each other's company. She has quite a few interesting ideas, not unlike Kankri's speeches, but hers are more… well, they seem a lot better thought-out and well-researched. You like her.

Once the two of you are done in the sauna, you present her with a pair of earrings you found in the school store. The label on them said that they were real emeralds, but you seriously doubt that's true. She takes them enthusiastically, though, and as she's admiring them, she asks you a question.

"I heard you talking to Meenah the other day – you're one of the two heiresses of Betty Crocker? How do you feel about having your future decided _for _you?"

"Well…" you say. "The assassination attempts get kind of old, but I like baking. I don't mind it. I've grown up baking, of course."

"Hm," Porrim says. She studies you. "I can't stand it when people try to decide things for me."

With that, she leaves, and you wonder about that. You think that the two of you grew closer either way.

**FREE TIME END**

…

You're heading down to lunch when you see Dirk. He's staring at the wall, hands in tight fists and face set in a scowl. You're a little nervous, but you approach him nonetheless. "Dirk?"

He jumps, twitches, and turns to face you. "Jane. Oh. Hey."

"How did it go? Is that the motive?" you ask. You're worried – not just for you and your classmates, not just for the situation as a whole, but for Dirk's mental health. He isn't looking to great. He clutches his elbows, the scowl still on his face.

"I didn't get a concrete answer," he mutters. "I got in the office, but every time one of 'em'd be close to saying something, the other one would take over. Annoying as fuck. Are you heading to go eat?"

"Yes," you say, and the two of you complete the journey together. There are a few people in the dining hall, though they all look away from Dirk. He looks at you, confused, and you remember that picture.

"What's up their asses?" he asks.

You hesitate for a moment, then shake your head. "I don't know," you say. The lie leaves a bad taste in your mouth, especially once you see him not believe you and then not have the energy to argue. But you sit with him at lunch anyway, because everyone's turning away from him. Not trusting him.

When Roxy shows up, laptop under one arm and energy drink in the other hand, he snaps.

"What the hell's going on? Everyone's treating me like I put them in this goddam place," Dirk says. He stands up, chair screeching as it's thrown backward. "You better tell me what I did, because Jane won't."

Roxy turns around and leaves faster than you thought possible, and Dirk stalks out after her. The entire room comes alive as he leaves. Jake sits down next to you, Aranea and Meenah right behind him. "That's suspicious," Aranea says. She clutches her necklace, which you just now notice as the Cancer symbol. Is she a Cancer? Then why does she have a Scorpio symbol on her shirt?

Maybe it's religious.

"De-finn-itely something fishy about that buoy," Meenah says. She sprawls over the table, long arms stretching to the other side of the table and wiggling over the side.

Jake purses his lips. "I don't want to believe such an upstanding lad like Dirk would do anything," he says. "But that picture…"

"I think there is something weird about him," you admit, though you don't really want to, because Dirk is your classmate, and you don't want to doubt any of your classmates. You sit back in your chair and watch as Meenah straightens herself, cracks her back, shows off her hipbones, and saunters off. Then you're left with Aranea and Jake, who seem to be interested in each other.

You decide that it's in your best interests to leave now. You kind of want to find Dirk, honestly, because he looked like he was freaking out the last time you saw him. You don't think he's in his room – he looked like he was going the other way, to the classrooms, so you think that if you find him and talk to him, maybe you can… well, you don't think you should tell him about the picture, you kind of came to a consensus on that as a group, but you think that you can probably calm him down a little.

Secure in your plan, you head out. As soon as you step out of the dining hall, however, Roxy waves you over. "Jane! I've got some more stuff! Meet me in the changing room to the public bath in ten minutes!"

You nod to her and decide that you still have time to find Dirk. You head into the school, wandering around the first floor, and then the second, and eventually making your way up to the dojo.

Where Dirk is kissing Rufioh.

Where you turn around and leave.

Where you go to find Roxy, wondering if Dirk's using Rufioh to get over Cronus or if Rufioh's using Dirk to forget about his already-present love triangle.

* * *

**And here we go!**


	13. Chapter 13

You head to the changing room, where Roxy waits with Cronus's laptop and a wine glass. You glance at the glass, which is very clearly full of alcohol, but don't say anything. You're not sure that you want to know how she got that in a _school _closed to the outside world.

"What is it?" you asked. Roxy takes a deep breath, drains the glass, and types a few things on the computer. "Is it bad?"

"I don't know," Roxy said. She beckons you closer, and you go. "Like I said, most of his files are seriously encrypted. Except his music and his porn. It's pretty good, actually – the music, not the porn, I mean – but I guess it has to be… anyway. I found a bunch of creepshots. Of like, everyone in here. And it's kind of weird, because I've never seen that douche before I came here, but he's got a picture of my panties."

"What?" you ask, and she opens the file. It's you, it's all of you, girls in skirts going upstairs and a few of guys in locker rooms. "That's disgusting. But… he could've totally got that here, right? Before he died?"

"That's what I thought, but… it's that same _date _thing. These are set in the _future, _and while that could be, like, messed with, I can't believe he'd even care to do that. He knows that we think he's douchey and creepy. I don't think he'd…"

"Yeah," you say. You frown. This entire thing is just getting too weird. Roxy looks like she wants to say more, but a scream interrupts your conversation.

"That sounds like Damara," you say. Roxy nods and shuts the laptop before following you to the door. You hope it's not another death. You hope…

It has to be another death.

You see Damara storming out of the dorms, fuming. "Damara!" you say, running forward to catch her arm. "What- what-"

"FUCKING. STRIDER."

With that, Damara storms off, tears running down her face and hands clenched into fists. You exchange look with Roxy, and then the two of you head deeper into the dorms. Horuss is standing at the open door to Rufioh's room, a smile frozen on his face. He doesn't look at you as you get closer.

"Horuss?" you ask, a little nervous. "What's going on?"

"T-they are participating in- very lewd acts and- I want to break his neck-" Horuss says. You look into the room no matter what your instincts are telling you and, sure enough, there are Rufioh and Dirk tangled in blankets, Rufioh trying to hide as best as he can and Dirk's face bright red.

"Who's neck, exactly?" you asked. Horuss doesn't say anything else. "And why are you guys going into Rufioh's room in the first place?"

"That's what I want to know," Dirk says. He's still bright red. He won't look any of you in the eye. "Last I checked, it's his room. You guys-"

"_I will break you into pieces, Dirk Strider."_

Dirk Strider, who you guess isn't scared of very much, audibly gulps and looks like he's about to join Rufioh in hiding. Rufioh still hasn't said anything. Roxy sighs.

"Well, at least nobody's dead."

"Yet," Dirk mutters, earning a harder glare from Horuss.

"I mean, it's just dra-ma! If anything, it makes this place more exciting!" Roxy says. She's smiling and you can tell that she's making an effort to keep it all light. You frown. You think that bad things could come from this drama, but you don't know exactly how it will go down. Either way, if either Dirk or Rufioh die in the next few days, you've got a few prime suspects.

Horuss huffs out a breath and stomps off. Rufioh completely deflates, and Dirk gives you a look that tells you to _close the door _or _else. _So, you close the door, because you don't actually want to be here staring at them. Then you sigh.

"I should get back to work," Roxy says. She gives you a smile. "See you later?"

"Yeah," you say. Now you've got a little time off. What are you going to do with it?

**FREE TIME START**

For some inconceivable reason, you feel the need to go hang out with Kankri. You manage to find him sans Porrim for once. He's in the library, scowling at titles and muttering under his breath. You tap his shoulder. He jumps.

"Jane! You should know better than to touch people without their permission…"

Can you really talk to him when he's being like this?

The answer is no. Maybe you'll go find someone else.

You eventually corner Horuss in a classroom. He's decided to fix a desk, apparently. That incredibly creepy grin is still on his face, and you wonder if you can talk to him when he's like this.

Yeah… you'll give it a shot.

"Horuss?"

He jumps and turns to you. "Oh! Jane. I'm not in the mood to talk to anyone right now, but if you absolutely hoof to, that is fine."

You'll stick around and talk to him. He probably needs a friend.

You sit down beside him and watch him fix the desk. By the time he's done, you've got a question for him.

"How can you do that so well?"

He gives you a look and you manage an awkward smile. "What is my talent?"

What is it? Super High School Level Carpenter? Super High School Level Renaissance Man? Super High School Level Equestrian?

It's Renaissance Man, right?

"You're the Super High School Level Renaissance Man, right?" you ask, a little cautious. He nods.

"I can do everything, but nothing calls to me," Horuss said. He sighs. "Except the void. And, neigh, I suppose I love horses. But other than that…"

You leave him muttering about nothingness and the void.

As you head back to your room, you supposed that the two of you have gotten a little closer, even if you don't know if you wanted to.

Either way, it's time to sleep. There will definitely be conflict in the next few days, you know that much. With only two days left until you find out if you are actually going to die… that was, unless someone killed someone else.

But you don't want to think about that.

No, instead you just go to bed.

* * *

**i used a random generator for the free time event again but i really didn't want to deal with kankri.**


	14. Chapter 14

When you wake up, everything seems wrong. You don't want to get out of bed, mostly because of that utter feeling of _wrongness, _but you figure that's exactly why you should get up.

You shower quickly, that pervasive feeling of wrongness never leaving. When you leave your room, you take the long way to the dining hall just so that you might run into someone.

You end up running into Dirk, who is chewing on his lower lip and looking nervous. "Something feels wrong," he mutters. You nod. Okay. Dirk's not dead. You still think that someone might be dead, but it's not Dirk. Part of you is really, really glad it's not him. He's someone you feel that you can probably trust, even if you've only known him for a few days. He may be tearing through the population of guys faster than you can get one boyfriend, but you like him anyway.

He looks at you, and you can't read his face behind his triangle shades.

"I'm fucking terrified," he says. His voice is completely solid, though, and that makes you feel a little better. The thing he says next does not, however. "Today's the last day."

"The last day-?"

"If someone doesn't die today, we all do. If that's the real motive," he says. His voice is so low that you can barely hear him. "I bet everyone's locked up in their rooms. That's why it's so quiet, that's why it feels so goddam wrong out here."

You nod and glance around. "Let's just go to breakfast," you say. "I'll make pancakes?"

He manages a sort-of grimace, sort-of smile at that. "Sounds good."

He helps you with the pancakes, handing you ingredients and bowls and, as it turns out, he's not that bad at flipping them, either. The two of you make enough to feed an army, and by the time you're done and head back out into the dining hall, almost everyone's there. The only one missing is Roxy.

Your heart jolts, but then she comes in with the laptop tucked under her arm and a glass of something alcoholic in her hand. She plops down in a seat next to the door and you put down one of three plates piled high with pancakes to join her. As an afterthought, you grab a plate for each of you.

She set up the laptop, but beams at you as you sit down. You slide the pancakes across to her and she cheers.

Dirk sits next to you. His face is still pale and tight.

"Hey, Di-Stri," Roxy says. She smiles at him, her chin propped up on one hand. "What's the deal? Both you and Janey are looking pale."

She glances around.

"Everyone is, actually."

"Today's the last day for that motive," Dirk says. Roxy pales.

"Oh, shit."

"I still don't know if it's for real," Dirk says, chewing on his thumbnail. You glance around and, just like Roxy said, everyone's looking nervous. Meenah, though she's talking loudly, won't keep her eyes in one place for long. Horuss keeps clenching and unclenching his fists. Damara is sulking at a table alone, and even though her face is normally pale, it's flushed a bright red.

Rufioh has chosen a table away from everyone else, too, and sits with his collar popped up to hide his face and eyes on the table. You'd feel bad for him if his situation wasn't basically his fault.

"I bet it's not," Roxy said. "I think… I think Calliope will be able to stop Caliborn, even if he thinks it's the true motive. At least I… hope so."

She trails off and stares into her drink.

The three of you sit in silence until Jake comes bounding up, for once not accompanied by a lady. Dirk won't look straight at him, and you wonder if something went on between the two of them, too.

It must have just been a crush on Dirk's part, because Jake doesn't seem to notice the awkwardness at all. He just takes Roxy's fork out of her hand and starts eating her pancakes. After a few bites, she steals the fork back. You watch them, a little confused.

"Terrifically weird day, innit?" he asks. Then he starts talking about movies, and it's nice to let yourself get sucked into dumb conversations. You wonder how Jake has had the time to watch so many movies if he's an adventurer. You're about to ask him when Dirk stands up and leaves without a single good-bye. You look around and notice that almost everyone is gone.

Roxy types a few more things, hits enter, and stands up. "I better go too, actually," she says. She giggles. "I'll check out those movies, though. Ciao!"

With that, she leaves. You look at Jake, blush, and decide that you might as well leave, too.

You clear up all the plates, and it takes you about ten minutes. It's ten-forty-five when you're done, and it's ten-forty-five when you hear someone yell.

You drop the plate you're washing in the sink and it breaks, but you don't really care. You run out of the kitchen and out of the dining hall to see Rufioh's door is open. Part of you hopes that someone's just found Rufioh sleeping around again.

The other part of you is almost one-hundred-percent sure that someone's dead.

You run into Meenah in the hallway and the two of you don't say a word to each other as you burst into the room. Damara and Dirk are standing in front of Rufioh's bed. Damara's making this choked sobbing sound that's almost impossible to hear. You're fairly certain Dirk's the one who yelled.

Meenah pivots on her heel and heads for Rufioh's bathroom to throw up. You push your way in-between Damara and Dirk to see what happened, though you already have a really bad idea on what it was.

Rufioh's dead. He's dead, spread out on his bed, with several stab wounds peppered up and down his bare chest. You don't know what could have made wounds like that. Most of them are stabs, though you do see a slice on his ribs. There's blood and vomit crusted around his mouth and down his chin and soaking into his pillow, and the smell alone makes you feel sick. The expression on his face is horrible, too – eyes bugged out, mouth hanging open, just absolute _pain. _

The screen in Rufioh's room flares to life. "You found a body," Caliborn says. He sounds kind of disappointed, like he'd wanted to kill all of you. "Get going on looking around. Trial in a while."

**INVESTIGATION START**

* * *

**So good-bye Rufioh. This is kind of bad because I actually only have one more death plotted out after this one, so I'm going to have to get thinking on that.**


	15. Chapter 15

You turn to Dirk. "Can you go find everyone?"

He won't look away from the body, but he nods. His face is a pale, gross, cheesy color that you don't like. He backs up, nearly trips over nothing, and then turns around and walks out of Rufioh's room. You swallow hard and look at the body. You hope that you'll get a file like you got last time, and they'll tell you how he died, because unless part of being a Renaissance Man is ability to inspect a body and Horuss can do it, you don't exactly know how you'll know anything about the body.

Just as you think this, thankfully, Calliope pops up beside you. She smiles, hands you a file, and disappears. You should wait for everyone, but part of you just wants to open it here and now, see what's going on… and you're honestly about to, but then Dirk comes back with everyone else. He sees the file in your hands, takes it from you, and scowls as he reads it.

"He died at ten-thirty, so…" he glances at his watch. "About half an hour ago. He has several stab wounds, one of his lungs is punctured, and so is his stomach in several places, as well as one cut across his chest. There's bruising around his chest and neck as well."

Dirk looks a bit squeamish, but he leans over to inspect the wounds. You do, too, if only to keep up your detective skills.

All of the stabs look… weird, somehow. The cut looks like any other cut, two flaps of skin no longer connected, but the stabs are… different. They're almost perfect holes, and almost seem puckered.

You decide to take a closer look at the cut, if only because it's the only part of this you really understand. And there's nothing special about it, apart the fact that it's far too shallow for it to be the cause of death.

You look at the bruises. The ones on his chest are fairly self-explanatory – they look like the attacker was mostly just trying to stun him with that. That could be the case with the cut, too – but you don't quite know. The ones on his neck, though… they look like they were made by fingers. Like the cause of death wasn't the stab wounds, but strangulation.

The expression on Rufioh's face makes sense then, too. His mouth isn't open because he was screaming, his mouth was open because he was trying to gasp for air – but then what about the vomit? Maybe one of the stab wounds was inflicted first? Maybe…

You can't find anything else where you are now. You should look around Rufioh's room a little, see if you can find any clues. You straighten yourself and turn to Dirk. He's clutching his sword like it's the only thing he has left. "Do you mind watching over the body?" you ask. "You and… you and-"

"I'll do it," Roxy says. She pulls out Cronus's laptop, plugs it into a wall charger, and sits down. "C'mon, Di-Stri, let's do this."

"Alright," Dirk says. His voice is raw. He sits down hard on the floor and stares at the ground. You don't know how much good they'll be, but at least you don't have to worry about anyone trying to sneak in to tamper with evidence with the swordsman on the case.

As you're about to start poking around, Meenah catches your sleeve. "Crocker," she says. You glance at her. "I think I know what made those stab wounds. Come with me."

It appears that searching the room is going to have to wait, because Meenah pulls you out of the room before you can do anything. She pulls you through the dormitory until you stop before a door.

Damara.

"Damara's room?" you ask. Meenah nods, then pushes open the door. "How did you-"

"Shh," she says, and then the two of you are in Damara Megido's room.

It's decked out fairly plainly, actually – there are a few posters in one corner, as well as a few language books on the desk. You walk over and pick them up – a Japanese-English dictionary, as well as a few books with titles that you can't understand, because they're in what is presumably Japanese.

"Concentrate, Crocker!" Meenah says. She holds up what looks like Damara's hair sticks, except they've got sharp points at the end. "I thought maybe those dumb-as-fish things she puts in her hair could be it."

You take them from her and inspect them. They do seem to be the right size… you remind yourself not to forget about measuring it a bit later. "They're clean, though," you say, and then you realize what a stupid thing that was to say. Meenah laughs.

"Means the beech can use bleach!" she says cheerfully. Then she turns around and begins rummaging around. "And she's shore as shell got a motive, even without that cray one Caliborn gave us. Her man was cheating."

It does make sense. As well as that, she was at the crime scene… maybe Meenah's right. Maybe it was Damara. But you need to keep looking, because if it wasn't here… well, then you'll all be dead anyway.

"I'll come back later," you say, and Meenah nods. She goes back to digging around in Damara's stuff, and you're not sure if she's actually trying to find things related to Rufioh's death or if she's just looking through Damara's stuff for the 'shell' of it.

You head back to Rufioh's room. Everyone has left, apart from Dirk and Roxy. Roxy is typing furiously on her laptop, and you don't really want to bother her… either way, you want to know why Dirk went in Rufioh's room in the first place.

You sit beside him and he jumps like he hadn't seen you come in. "Yeah?" he asks.

"Why did you come in here? To find the body, I mean," you say, and he looks a little embarrassed.

"I just wanted to see him," he says. "I saw Damara go in ahead of me, and then I figured there'd be a fight… so I followed her. So nobody would get hurt. And we found him like this."

Damara would have absolutely no time to kill Rufioh if what Dirk's saying is true. There has to be another option for the killer. You sigh and glance around. Well, you might as well get to investigating this room before you all die of old age.

* * *

**Investigation will finish… in a chapter probably? Maybe two. IDK. This upcoming execution isn't as exciting as the first one, sadly, but it'll still be fun once we get to it…**

**Either way, here we go!**


	16. Chapter 16

You stand at the doorway of the room, trying to figure out how, exactly, it all went down. Trying to see something out of place, something that'll give you a darn clue.

There's nothing that seems out of place in a weeaboo's room, actually – there are some anime posters on the walls, and there's a shelf full of what looks like action figures? As well as that, the bookshelf in the room is shoved full of Japanese comics. So that's nothing really too big. Something's dripping, though, and it's driving you crazy.

You peek in the bathroom and, sure enough, the shower is dripping. There's still water on the floor, like it was recently used, and there's a towel thrown on the floor. Did Rufioh take a shower right before dying? It would explain the state of undress, but you don't think he was wet. As well as that, the only messy part of his hair seemed to have been done by making out with someone, or something like that.

The killer?

You don't know.

You turn off the shower all of the way and head back out. Dirk glances at you. He's really, really pale, and overall doesn't look like he should be out of bed. "Thanks for turning that thing off," he said. "Driving me fucking _insane, _but I couldn't figure out what it _was, _and-"

He cuts himself off and stares at the ground. You decide to make better use of your time and scrutinize the room. You poke through the garbage can, but find nothing out of the ordinary. You look around the body, under the bed, but there's nothing.

You scream when Damara taps your elbow.

"It is okay," she says, and you try and make your heart not pump out of your chest.

"Yeah," you gasp. Then you remember that she's sort of the prime suspect, and you should probably interrogate her. "Can I talk to you?"

"Yes. I talk to you," Damara says, and she grabs you by the elbow and steers you out of the room. The two of you end up in the kitchen, where she pulls a skewer out of soapy dishwater. "Not me. Not my hair things. This kill Rufioh."

You frown as you take the skewer from her. How in the world had this gotten there? You'd been washing dishes when Rufioh died, so unless they were waiting for you to leave… You shudder to think that whoever killed Rufioh could have been right behind you, just waiting, and nod. "Thanks, Damara," you say. She nods and stomps off, muttering something under her breath. You catch 'Meenah' once or twice, but most of it's something you can't understand.

Still, you have to make sure this is the murder weapon. You glance at the skewer and notice blood at the top… and when you look in the sink, the water left is a little red-tinged. So it's probably it, but you'll definitely have to go back to Rufioh's room to compare. You hope that Meenah's stopped digging through Damara's room, because you don't think that Damara appreciated it.

Still, you sort of wonder how she could find it this easily. Maybe she was frantic in finding a weapon? Maybe she saw the killer, or just the weapon itself?

Maybe she killed Rufioh but wasn't stupid enough to use her hair-stick-things?

But, no. That's impossible. There's no way she could have gotten to the sink… is there?

You make a mental note to ask her how she knew about these later.

Then you notice a knife's missing from the set and get a bad feeling. But you can't think about that now, as long as it doesn't have bearing on this current trial. You need to find Rufioh's killer, and you do not think a knife was involved... because you do remember seeing them all when you were cleaning everything up. Damara must have taken it, and you can deal with her later.

You head back to the room to compare the holes to the skewer. It feels so weird, to be holding what's probably a murder weapon, and you don't especially like the feeling. You feel like you should know who the killer is – but you don't. You have your doubts, and you have your suspicions, but there's no definitive answer.

In the last trial, Meenah was a big help, and so was Dirk. So maybe they'll be able to help.

Roxy's gone when you get back, and you frown. "Where'd she go?" you ask. Dirk glances at you, then back to where Roxy had used to be. Both her and the computer are gone. He frowns.

"Huh," he says. "Guess I'm a really bad guard, then?"

You head over to Rufioh's body and line up the skewer with one of the holes in his stomach. It works perfect, and now as you look closer at the skewer, you can see a little ridge probably meant to hold meat that would definitely make the skin rise up if one pulled it out of a body.

"What about the cut?" Dirk asks. "What made that?"

You narrow your eyes and look up to the cut. It looks like anything sharp could have made it. It doesn't seem like a big deal to you.

You look at the finger-shaped bruises on his neck. They look large – definitely not Damara's hands. It can't be Damara. Horuss, maybe? He'd be strong enough to kill someone like that with little to no resistance, and then he would have the extra bit of motive to pin it on Damara…

You shake your head free of those thoughts and straighten yourself. You're about to take another look around the room when the screen flickers to life.

"It's time for the trial, dearies!" Calliope says. The screen crackles once, then turns off.

You glance at Dirk, who shrugs. "Guess we better go," he says. He still looks sick. His hair's all messed up in the front, like he's been clutching at it. His shirt is sticking to his chest in such a way that suggests a lot of sweating. Funny, that was something that you'd expect from Horuss, not Dirk.

The two of you go in silence to the elevator. Everyone assembles slowly – Meenah and Aranea, Meenah smacking her gum, followed by Kankri, who speaks about people who 'can't handle such noises', and Porrim, who puts a hand over his mouth. Soon, everyone except Roxy and Horuss is there.

Roxy appears a few moments later, sans her laptop for the first time in the past few days. She's out of breath. "Sorry about that," she says. She looks around. "Where's Horuss?"

The elevator opens.

"In!" Caliborn says.

"But, Horuss-"

"He's sitting this out," Caliborn says. "Because he's _dead. _Now, in!"

* * *

**So, next month is NaNoWriMo, so this is the last one for a while. But let's hope this was entertaining anyway!**


	17. Chapter 17

The twelve of you freeze. Caliborn gestures for you to go in again, scowling. Eventually Dirk takes a shaky step forward, one hand clenched so tightly in his hair that you think it'll be sticking up that way once he lets go. "He's what," he says. "Someone – someone-"

"Yep," Caliborn says. "One of you dumb idiots used everyone's lack of a motive to kill him. Not so dumb, really. In."

Dirk swallows, looks around at all of you, and closes his eyes before going into the elevator. You mirror his actions, running a quick eye over everyone – everyone looks totally shocked, to have both Horuss and Rufioh dead now, and you remind yourself that it could still totally be Horuss that killed Rufioh. As well as that… Rufioh's killer could still be Horuss's killer, too, so you have to keep that in mind…

You shake your head free of those thoughts and step into the elevator. You close your eyes, thinking about the last time this happened – Cronus was still alive, flirting and touching and laughing, though now that you think back to it, his laugh was a little bit nervous then, wasn't it? Rufioh was still alive, too, and he'd been standing at the front of the elevator and fidgeting, giving an awkward smile to anyone that looked at him.

You don't want to think about it.

Eventually everyone's in, and the elevator moves down with the jerky clanking it had before. You grab onto the side and look at Roxy. She was late, and she still looks out of breath, but other than that she looks about as normal as ever. Did she…

No, you can't afford to think that she killed Horuss. If you lose your possible best friend ever, you don't know what you'll do.

All you can do is find Rufioh's killer so that all of you don't die, and even though you're going to have to do this all over again right after the trial.

**TRIAL START**

Dirk starts the conversation immediately. He forces his voice out strong, takes out all of the shaking that was there before, and you're grateful for it. "First of all, what killed him," he says. "We've got to figure that out first."

"It was the stab wounds, right?" Latula asks. She's been pretty reserved since Mituna's death, and you're a little bit surprised that she's talking, but she is. She leans forward, her gaze boring into Dirk's sunglasses. "The vomit."

"What about the cut on him?" Porrim asks. "That's got to have something to do with it."

"The cut's too shallow to kill anyone," Latula counters. "It has to be the stab wounds. There's no other alternative-"

"That's wrong," you say, shaking your head. "I mean, the stab wounds played a part, which is why the vomit was there, but he was strangled. There are bruises on his neck, and his eyes are all popped out, like he was strangled. Also, the bruises are in the shape of large thumbs. It couldn't have been any of us girls, or Kankri."

"Ex_cuse _me, I-"

"Shush!"

Dirk looks at you, and you can tell his pleased. Meenah just one hip out and sticks a hand on it, her lower lip in her mouth so that she can suck on her lip rings. After a while, she speaks. "But then what made the stab wounds, if it wasn't a gill? Because I thought it was Megido's hair things."

"No!" Damara says. She stamps her foot, and you have to agree with her. She looks at you. "Tell them!"

"Damara found skewers in the dishwater that I was using to wash dishes," I say. "They were bloody, and they matched the size of the holes on Rufioh's body. It had to be them. The only problem is-"

"None of us have an alibi? Any of us could've put those skewers in there?" Dirk guesses. He shakes his head. "Well, we've already narrowed it down to guys. Rufioh died at 10:30. Where was everyone?"

"Jake, Roxy, and I were still in the dining hall," I say. "You were gone by then, because you left earlier, but it can't be Jake, either."

Dirk nods again. He doesn't seem bothered that he just got more suspicion thrown on him, because he was gone, and he's a man, and he's got pretty large hands. You try to throw some of it off of him, though, because at this point it's looking at him, Kurloz, or Horuss.

"We can't take out Horuss as a possibility," you say. "Just because he's not here didn't mean he didn't kill Rufioh."

You look around, and everyone nods. You sort of look at Kurloz, wonder what he's thinking – you haven't thought much about him, and if he does decide to kill someone, that could be a problem, couldn't it? He sees you looking and waves, smiling and tilting his head to the side, and you look away.

Dirk frowns. "Maybe," he says. "I don't see it, though."

He's talking really, really fast, like he's trying to get this over with as fast as possible, and you don't know why. He pushes on.

"What about the cut," he says. "We have to talk about that. What made it? Who could've done it?"

"A knife, obvifishly," Meenah says. "What else?"

"Jane, were any knives missing from the kitchen this morning?" Dirk asks.

"No…" you say, and you frown. "But what else? A letter-opener or something. Anything sharp, really-"

You cut yourself off and stare at him. As far as you can tell, behind his sunglasses he's staring at you so intensely that he's just asking for you to get it, and you _don't know why._

"Or a sword," you say, and you practically whisper it. Dirk nods.

"Or a sword," he repeats.

And it all clicks together. It was Dirk. It had to be Dirk. He had the time, he had the sword, he could have easily slipped back into the kitchen to dispose of the skewers when he went to collect everyone, and, well, he could have even kept the skewers in his little sword bag thing before that.

But something doesn't make sense.

And that's _why._

"Dirk," you say. "Did you kill Rufioh?"

Dirk opens his mouth, but Roxy jumps in.

"Of course he didn't!" she says. "Why would he? He liked Rufioh! It has to be a setup, doesn't it? It can't be Dirk-"

"It's me," Dirk says. "I killed him. Voting-"

"No!" Roxy says, and her voice is so high and shrill that you want to clap your hands over your ears. "It _wasn't _him! I'm not going to believe it until I see some solid proof!"

She looks around at you, all of you, until her gaze lands on you.

"Janey, I'm sorry, but unless you give me some solid proof that it was definitely, definitely Di-Stri, I'm not believing you. We have to keep talking about it. And anyway, why would he admit to it like that. He has to be protecting someone. So tell me, Janey. Give me the goddam proof."

You open your mouth, then shut it again. You do have to keep talking about it, because even though it does make the best sense for it to be Dirk, that could be a trap. Dirk looks at you, and from what you can tell he's panicking. But you nod.

"Roxy's right," you say. "We can't just decide this quick. We have to keep talking about it. About the little things."

"But-" Dirk starts, and you shake your head.

"No," you say. "I want to be over with it because we have another one right after this, but we have to keep talking."

* * *

**Next chapter is the end of this trial/execution, and then we'll hit up Horuss's investigation and start all over again! Fun times. Fun, fun times.**

**Also, updating's going to be a little bit weird. At least once a week, though, **_**probably **_**more than that.**


	18. Chapter 18

"How about a motive?" Roxy says. She puts one hand up before Dirk can say anything. "And don't you say anything, Strider. I want to know what other people think."

"What other people think of _my_ motive?" Dirk asks, frowning. "That doesn't make any fucking sense."

"Deal with it," Roxy says. She surveys all of you. "I don't think he had a motive, because it wasn't him. I think Meenah's right. I think it was Damara. She has the hair things, she was one of the people to find his body, and she has a motive. She was jealous."

Damara dissolves into violent-sounding Japanese.

"It can't be Damara, unless she strangled Rufioh with her feet," you say. You glance at Dirk. He looks totally lost. He was counting on you all just saying, 'yep, alright' and voting for him after he admitted it… but why? Was he trying to protect someone? Did someone he really like kill Rufioh? "But maybe… if he really, really rushed… Jake could have killed Rufioh."

Jake jumps about three feet into the air. "What – what – preposterous idea!" he says. He looks absolutely shocked. You don't actually think he did it. Dirk grips the stand in front of him, his knuckles white.

"How the hell could he?" he asks. "There is no fuckin' way English could've killed him in time. He was with you, wasn't he?"

"You could have stabbed Rufioh, cut him, and then Jake could have strangled him," you say, but you sound doubtful even to yourself. You mostly just wanted to humor Roxy. "And you'd have a reason to protect him."

"Wh-at makes you say that?" Dirk asks. There's a strange little break in his voice that you don't want to analyze. "Why – couldn't I have just killed him? Why won't you let me tell you my goddam motive and then why won't you just send me to my death?"

"Because it is a little weird," you say. You frown, think it over a little bit. "Why would you admit to it?"

"Because I don't want you guys to die," Dirk says. He spits out the words, his face screwing up a little in a way that suggests he's trying not to cry. "I don't know if – I didn't know if that motive was the real one or not, and I had to do something about it. I tried to go to them, to see if it was real or not, and I couldn't get a goddam solid answer. So I had to do it. Don't you get it? I had to do it. I chose Rufioh because he was the easiest one to kill. And I tried to make it obvious, with the sword cut – and I took a shower in his room, and I left it on and I thought I was soaked enough so that you'd know… For Chrissake, guys. How in the hell did you catch Cronus? Oh, right. 'Cause I was helping, just like I tried to _blatantly state my guilt _this time, but you weren't having any of it."

"Well, now that makes a shell of a lot more sense," Meenah says. "But it was kind of a shitty thing to do, Strider."

Dirk swallows.

"Please, just vote," he says, his voice breaking again. "I don't want to have to – just – now you won't all die, right? I don't want Caliborn or whatever to say the motive was a fake, or anything, I just want to die knowing I did something about _something_."

"Lay it all out for us, Janey," Roxy says, and Dirk groans, dropping his head into his hands. "I don't want to believe it. Lay it all out."

You nod and begin.

…

_The motive this time was one that wouldn't probably appeal to everyone – if someone didn't die in the next three days, we all would. But the killer couldn't let that happen, so they set out to create what they thought was a pretty obvious crime scene._

_ First, they left from the breakfast as soon as they saw their chosen victim, Rufioh Nitram, leave. They went immediately to his room with the skewers that were most likely in their sword carrier bag thing and apparently initiated some sort of… well… you know what they initiated from the hickeys on the late Nitram. Midway through, they stabbed him a few times with the skewers. None of the wounds were fatal, though, so they strangled him, leaving large finger-shaped bruises on his neck. After that, they took out their sword and sliced a seemingly meaningless line on him. After this, they took a very quick shower, to make sure that all of the blood was off of them._

_ In fact, I bet if we were to ask our killer to strip to their underwear, we would find blood there. They'd taken off their clothes for their other things, so they weren't bloody. _

_ So then, fully dressed, they stood shocked, when Damara came in. She screamed, bringing myself and Meenah to the scene, and that's when the killer slipped away to gather everyone else. They made a quick stop on the way and threw the skewers back into the soap. They were careless on purpose, because nobody probably would have found them had they just kept them on their person._

_ And then they gathered everyone, and stayed to guard the body, and once the trial started, they did everything in their power to guide the conversation over to the sword cut, as that's what would be most likely to incriminate them._

_ Isn't that right… DIRK STRIDER?_

…

"Yeah," Dirk says. "That's totally right. Vote now, Caliborn."

"Fine," Caliborn says, and he seems almost… angry? But then again, he doesn't ever really seem not angry, so you brush it off. "Voting time!"

So all of you vote, and you all vote for Dirk Strider. Roxy has been strangely quiet since the explanation. She just votes without a word, her eyes downcast. Dirk closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and nods.

"And… you're are right. Wow. Amazing. Execution time."

Dirk is pulled out of the room exactly like Cronus was, and you're all shoved after him to watch. You're shaking a lot more than you were with Cronus's execution. You don't _want _to watch Dirk die, you don't want to see it. But you're shoved into an execution chamber just like the last one. The lights flicker on one after another, and you're faced with a Parisian-looking area – at least, you guess Parisian, because there's a track of angry French people speaking playing over the speakers you can't see. You see the Louvre in the background.

In the middle is a guillotine.

Someone gasps, and you find it hard to breathe. Dirk is dragged out. There's a Burger King crown on his head, and his hands are tied behind his back. He's not fighting. He doesn't fight when they shove him down, shove his head down and he the only thing he does is take a deep breath and set his face in an unchangeable expression before the blade of the guillotine descends and his head rolls a few feet before coming to a stop a few feet away from the chain-link fence that separates the group from the execution place. You press both hands against your mouth and take a shaky breath through your nose. Your entire body is trembling. His sunglasses fell off, and the rolling closed one of his eyes, but the other one is orange and staring up at all of you.

"The prince is _dead,_ now _your _shit is wrecked," Caliborn says. He looks pleased with himself.

Nothing breaks your heart more than the thought that you have to go straight back into this, and this time you have to do it _sans _Dirk.

* * *

**Goodbye Dirk Strider, you live forever in our hearts. And with that I have like two more favorite living characters in this fanfiction, and one of 'ems gonna be dead soon enough. Fun times lay ahead.**

**I think we'll keep going until there's five left, like the original game. I like that idea.**


	19. Chapter 19

Your group is shoved back up into the school, but before Caliborn can force you all off into a new investigation, Calliope takes over.

"Alright, sweethearts, you take a break before you investigate Horuss," she says. "After all, none of you have found him yet. So just you go back to your beds and sleep it off."

You sort of just drift to your room. Tomorrow morning it's going to be back to this, you're going to have to investigate again, as soon as two of you find Horuss's body – and you don't know if you can do it. Dirk was one of the best investigators that your group had, and now you're down to you and Meenah, and you don't know if you're going to be able to find the killer.

If Dirk hadn't admitted it… you really think that if he'd wanted to get out, he would've been able to. If that motive hadn't been what it was, and if he'd tried to get out on his own, he definitely would have made it out. If he would have just been more careful with the stabbing, killed him that way, and kept the skewers on him… you have no doubt that your votes would have pointed to Damara.

You just have to hope that the person that killed Horuss is more careless than Cronus was. Because you're not so sure if you're going to be able to catch them otherwise.

…

The next morning, you don't want to get out of bed. The track hasn't played yet, so you're pretty sure that nobody's found Horuss's body yet – but then there's a knock on your door and you sigh and get up to answer it.

It's Roxy.

"Come with me," she says.

So you follow her.

She leads you into the bathhouse, and then she pulls out the laptop. "I don't want them to hear us," she says, and you wait for an explanation, but she types a few things before saying anything else. "I'm starting to figure out what's going on, and I need to bounce ideas off of someone. And I like you, Janey. B-F-Fs forever, right?"

You notice that she's sans alcohol for once. You're going to mention it, but then she keeps talking.

"I think that we were all here before," she says. You blink. "And Calliope and Caliborn were our classmates."

"Those little green things?" you say, frowning, and she looks up at you, pushing hair behind her ear irritably as it swings into her face

"Well, obviously they weren't little green things back then," she says. "And I don't know what's going on now, but-"

Meenah bursts into the bathhouse. "Gills! We've got a booty."

"We've got a what?" you say, frowning, and Roxy thinks on it.

"Body."

"That's right. C'mon."

So the two of you follow Meenah, circling around and going up until you eventually end up in the garden. Horuss is lying…

Well, everywhere.

**INVESTIGATION START**

He's been cut up, into pieces, and you turn around and throw up on some chickens. Then you wipe off your mouth and turn back around.

His head is the closest to you, and the rest of his body is strewn across the garden. Kurloz appears at you elbow and makes some signs. Meulin translates.

"Should we collect them up or let them lay there?"

You think about it. "Let's see how it's all set up," you say, looking straight at Meulin. She's staring at your mouth, so you're pretty sure that she gets what you're saying. "We'll… we'll see how they're laid out, and if someone can make a sketch of it-"

Meulin jumps up and down, shooting her hand in the air. "Me! Me! I love drawing!"

"Okay," you say, and it's a little creepy, because you're talking about a dead body here and you saw Meulin and Horuss talking a few times and you sort of thought that they were kind-of friends, but you keep going. "And once we have that, then we should move them back into…"

"A body!"

"Yeah," you say, and Meulin beams at you before pecking you on the cheek and bounding off. You sort of just blink, and Kurloz lays a hand on your head for a second before following her.

"That was weird," Roxy says.

"They're weird," Meenah agrees. "But if they're going to deal with that, we should get to infishtigating."

"That was really a stretch," Roxy says.

"Shut it."

So you sort of just scan the room. The rest of your classmates are here. Jake is looking sort of horrified, and he hasn't moved from the door, so you wonder if he's one of the ones who found the body in the first place. You're about to go to him when Calliope pops up in front of you.

"Investigation file, dear hearts," she says, and you blink at the nickname before she shoves the file into your hands and disappears. You open it up. Scan it. Swear.

Because this one doesn't have the cause of death listed, either. You read it out loud, because everyone except Meulin, who is still sketching out body parts, has gathered around and she can't hear anyway so you think that you can just have Kurloz tell her later, or something. But you read out loud the important details for the ones that can hear.

"Horuss Zahhak died at about noon. He has sustained several injuries, including being dismembered and strewn about like tinsel –"

"Okay, who wrote this?" Aranea says, frowning. "Who would write that?"

"As well as a large dent in his skull," you say. With that, you end, and hand the file to whoever wants it. Kankri snatches it up, and starts talking about how this dismemberment thing is all very triggering, and you just sort of ignore him. You have bigger things to worry about.

Like, who could have killed Horuss Zahhak and made it out alive.

"So," you say. "Who found him first?"

"I did," Jake says, and he raises his hand. "I came up here to- to check on all of this, because I thought that a garden would be a nice place to get some thinking done."

For once, there's not a lot of weird things in his speech, and you nod.

"And then…"

"Me," Meenah says. "And then I came down and collected y'all."

You nod, and scan your people again. "Okay," you say. "So… I guess we've got to figure out who killed him, then."

"That's the idea," Aranea says, and you really don't like the look of her. Maybe it's because now she's been hanging onto Jake, smoothing down his hair and leaning on him, but there's just something about Aranea Serket that you just do not like one bit. "So, shall we begin?"

* * *

**Alright, it is time to figure out who killed Horuss. Funny story, I actually sort of forgot who I was going to have kill Horuss before I wrote the last chapter, but now I've got someone in mind again. So that'll work out.**


	20. Chapter 20

You glance around and wonder if you should check in on Kurloz and Meulin. Kurloz is following Meulin around as she draws, pointing out things that she missed and every so often reaching over with a dark blue crayon. Why blue, you don't know. You study them for a few moments and then move on.

You decide that you'll try and figure out the murder weapon later – once Kurloz and Meulin are done looking at the body, it should be easier to figure that out. Maybe you'll even ask them to do it, because you're not so sure how good you'll be at something like that. You sort of doubt that a Shipper and a… what was Kurloz again?

Oh, yeah, Cult Leader.

Maybe there's a reason he seems less than uncomfortable about the situation.

You shudder and decide that if you're just going to be standing around here otherwise, you might as well just head into Horuss's room. That might give you some clues, mightn't it?

So you grab Roxy's sleeve, because you want some company on this, and she stumbles along after you. She's still clutching her laptop like it's the last thing on earth, but she follows you willingly enough, so you probably won't mention it.

However, once you get down to Horuss's room, you find it locked. You glance at each other before Roxy leans forward and knocks. You don't know what good that'll do, but you watch her. And Calliope answers the door.

"Hey, Callie," Roxy says. She smiles brightly, and you wonder why. Calliope isn't on your side. She's half of the people keeping you in here. Making you kill yourself. You think back to what Roxy said, about her theory of this school, and shove it out of your head. That makes absolutely no sense. "Can we look around in there?"

"Of course," Calliope says, giving Roxy an almost loving look. You think that's really weird, but you don't mention it. You're too distracted by Horuss's room.

Which is… full of horse penises.

Roxy bursts out laughing and you just sort of stand there. They're _everywhere. _They're _huge. _There are paintings, and there are… you really don't want to think this words, but there are what look a heck of a lot like dildos.

"I'll handle this room," Roxy says, and she bursts out laughing again. "Oh my _Gawd_, Janey, this is too much. You go up and ask Meulin how she's doing with the drawing."

You nod and get out of there faster than you thought possible. You are not going to stare at horse dildos for any longer than you have to.

Back up in the garden, everyone except for Meenah, Kurloz, and Meulin are gone. Meulin is on the floor with her sketchpad, and Kurloz is stitching Horuss's body back together with sparkly thread. You blink a few times, shake your head, and Meenah heads over to you.

"Meulin's done with her thing," she says, and you nod. After the horse dildos, you're not quite sure if anything can shock you, but Kurloz stitching up a dead body like it's his job is starting to freak you out, so you head over to where Meulin is sitting. You're about to call over your shoulder for Dirk when you remember that he's dead and it stops you for a moment. You just freeze up for about ten seconds, and then you continue on, swallowing and wiping at your eyes a little bit.

You crouch down in front of Meulin, and then that's too much work and you just sit down. She looks up at you and beams. "Hi, Jane!" she says, and you're pretty sure you're going to be deaf before the end of this encounter. "I drew up the crime scene! Purrloz is stitching him up, so that he'll be easier on the eye!"

"That's…" you don't quite have the heart to finish that sentence. Meulin taps her lip with a pencil a few times, then nods.

"But don't worry, he checked out internal injuries first!"

"What did you find with the crime scene?" you ask, and Meulin beams at you and shoves the paper in your face. You take the sketchbook from her and study it – she drew an aerial view of the garden, and it's actually pretty good. She added in the plants and stuff, as well as the chickens, and you notice that Horuss's body parts were arranged in a… strange symbol. You don't know if it was intentional, but it looks vaguely familiar – almost like a butchered Roman Numeral two. You frown, and nod, and then hand it back to Meulin, who continues shading.

You decide that Kurloz has to be near done by now, and once you're done talking to him you can see if Roxy found anything in Horuss's room full of his… interesting horse memorabilia.

You sit down beside Kurloz, who has just finished stitching Horuss's head to his body. He glances at you as you sit down, and then he starts signing. You watch him blankly, and eventually he shakes his head and pulls out a pad of paper.

_CAUSE OF DEATH WASN'T THE MOTHERFUCKING CUTS :o)_

You blink a little. "It wasn't?" Though you didn't really expect it to be. They'd have to take Horuss by surprise to kill him, whoever they are, and slicing someone into bits doesn't really seem like a very surprise-y way to do things.

Kurloz shakes his head and smiles. He reaches down and takes off Horuss's headgear he's always wearing and the turns his head over. On the back of his head, there's a large indent. You notice that he's got blood crusted around his nose, too. You're no doctor, but isn't that a symptom of very severe head trauma?

Kurloz is still beaming. It's a little creepy, if you're being completely honest.

"He died from getting hit in the head, didn't he?" you say, and Kurloz nods.

_RIGHT ON THE MOTHERFUCKING MONEY_

He considers, then adds another one of those creepy nosed smiley faces.

You nod slowly, taking another good look at the dent. It's large; a few inches wide and deeper than you like the look of. You nod again, slowly, and then stand up. "Thanks," you say, and Kurloz smiles at you. His mouth stretches like it's not supposed to open – you know he's mute, but it occurs to you that he may be selectively so, or at least hasn't been mute since birth. It's something to consider.

You want to go back down to check out how Roxy's investigation is going, but something tells you that you should take another look around. There might be something that you've missed.

You glance around, and there's something strange about that puddle of blood over there. You head over, frowning. There are tracks leading out of the blood. Perhaps someone needed something to move the body? You're not totally sure. But you are sure that they'll end up being important in some way – because as of right now, you might have a vague idea of who could have done it, but you really have no clue.

Well, you've got two things that you need to do. First, you need to go see Roxy, and then you're going to check the kitchen to see if you're missing any more knives.

You're not the biggest fan of going back into that horse-filled room, but you figure you have to. You do, or you all die.

* * *

**One more investigation chapter, and then the trial. With the death of Dirk, we've got some new people stepping up.**


	21. Chapter 21

You dawdle on your way back to Horuss's room, but eventually you're there. Roxy has propped the door open with a rather large… well, you know what it is, and she's inside, digging through horse genitalia like it's her job.

"Did you find anything?" you ask, and she turns around. She smiles brightly when she sees you.

"Yep!" she says brightly. She pulls a piece of paper out of her pocket and unfolds it, her eyes scanning it one more time before she hands it over. You take it from her and read it, frowning.

It's written on the paper that's in all of your rooms, and in a regular blue ink. The writing style is almost aggressively normal – like it knows that it should be distinct but is trying to tone it down for the purposes of the letter. It's regularly capitalized, with a period at the end of each sentence and no signature at the bottom.

_Horus – _

_ I know how you feel. Come to the garden tonight. Thank you._

You blink. It's short. It's to-the-point. It's blunt, like maybe…

Like maybe the writer didn't have that great of a grasp on English. On top of that, Horuss's name is spelled wrong, which could be anyone's mistake, because almost everyone here has a weird, wacked-out name, _but._

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Roxy asks. You press your lips together to try and think before answering.

"I've got to see what the state of the kitchen is," you say. You smile at her, but it doesn't feel like a real smile to your face and you doubt it looks like a real smile to her. "I'll see you later. Thanks for the letter. Are you going to keep looking around in here?"

"Yeah. Just in case," Roxy says. She looks around and blinks a few times, like she's trying not to cry. "It's just… I don't know how much longer I can keep doing this, you know? Investigating… why do they keep doing this? Did someone want to leave so badly that they had to kill someone? There wasn't even a motive this time. I've been trying to use this to make myself better. I'm going to stop. The drinking. I'm going cold turkey, right now. I dumped the rest of what I had down the drain recently, and there's no more. Why can't they… why do they…"

She breaks off, and you're not quite sure what to do. So the two of you stand there in an awkward silence for a bit, and then you nod and dismiss yourself. You need to see if there's a knife missing.

When you get to the kitchen, Damara's in there. She's staring at the knife rack. There only one missing is the one that you saw her take, and you feel a jolt in your stomach. "Took mine," she says. You glance at her, and she turns and meets your gaze. "It is gone."

"Your knife?" you say, and she nods. "Someone took it?"

"Yes. Killer. Killer took knife."

"Can I look around in your room, then?" you ask, and Damara seems to consider it. "Just to see if they've left any clues. When they took the knife."

She nods then, but she still looks doubtful. You follow her out of the kitchen and back to the rooms. You see the door propped open near the end of the hallway, but thankfully Damara's room isn't as far as Horuss's and you don't need to pass the horror that room brings again. You might be bringing it up a lot, but it's really… really… prevalent. It's like there's nothing more to Horuss than his…

Well, you know what it is.

Damara swings open her door, and it looks about the same as last time, at least decoration-wise. The only thing different is that her dresser has been ransacked. Lingerie is strewn across the floor, a few extra skirts have been tossed up to hang from the ceiling fan, extra blouses are ripped up and scattered about everywhere. Her face is set in a scowl. You frown a little at the damage.

There's some blood on the floor. You crouch down, and notice with a bit of concern that it's in the same sort of tracks that you saw coming out of the blood puddle. This is definitely something that you should think a little bit more about. Damara stands with her arms crossed, and you look up and are about to say something, but then the monitor in the corner of the room flickers on.

"Investigation is over. Hurry up, dumbass. All of you. Are dumbasses."

With that, it turns off and you sigh. You think you have enough to make a case for… what? You don't really know what your angle will be. You'll be completely useless without Dirk here. You've got Roxy, and Meenah – and, you suppose, Kurloz and Meulin – but without Dirk making the connections… you don't know if any of your current partners in stopping crime are as good. It's just a simple fact. Dirk was good.

But now Dirk is dead.

And there's nothing you can do about it. Right now you need to find Horuss's killer, and then, hopefully, you'll be okay. You'll be done with all of this.

So you head over to the elevator. Meenah's already there, checking her nails. When she sees you, she nods, but otherwise remains silent.

Damara, who was right behind you, glares at her.

Kankri's next, babbling to Aranea about something. The two of them are talking over each other, trying to beat each other out in sure annoyingness, and you bring a hand up to your forehead and sigh.

Thankfully, Porrim shows up next and shuts them both up with a hand over Kankri's mouth and a glare pointed at Aranea.

Meulin and Kurloz are next, Meulin clutching her drawing of the crime scene and squealing, Kurloz watching her with a faint smile on his face. You think that if he wasn't so creepy, he'd probably be a pretty good boyfriend. And maybe Meulin can see through that, or something.

But you still see the creepiness and barely anything but the creepiness.

Roxy's next. She's got Cronus's laptop, just like the other times. You think she's growing unhealthily attached to that thing.

Last are Jake and Latula. Jake still looks shellshocked, but Latula just looks mad.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" she asks, popping her gum. "Let's do this!"

* * *

**A chapter or two on the trial, and then our execution, and this time we won't immediately go another murder/trial. Though our next one should be exciting, when it does happen!**


	22. Chapter 22

The ride down in the elevator is mostly silent. Latula is still chewing her gum really loudly, and it's really, really starting to annoy the heck out of you, but you don't mention it. You're feeling a little stressed right now, honestly, and everyone else probably is, too. You have a few suspicions on who killed Horuss, but things aren't obvious this time. With Rufioh, Dirk confessed. With Mituna, there was that one piece of evidence that pinned Cronus.

You don't think that this one is going to be quite as simple.

So you all exit the elevator and go to your positions. With both Rufioh and Dirk dead, you just have pictures on either side of you. It's a little creepy. But you have to focus on Horuss. Who killed him, and why.

You look around. You can't imagine what kind of horror the coming execution will bring. You don't know if you're going to be able to handle it.

But you have to. Because if you don't, then you can't move forward, and you can't get out of here with everyone… sans Mituna, Cronus, Rufioh, Dirk, Horuss, and Horuss's killer.

But anyway.

"There's something a little fishy about the file," Aranea says, starting you off. Meenah beams at her, and you resist the urge the roll your eyes. "There's something that's similar to the last one."

"No cause of death is specified," you say, stroking where a mustache would be, could you grow a decent mustache. "That means it can't be the obvious reason, right?"

"What? Obviously it is," Latula says. "It's the fact that he was cut up into little pieces."

Kurloz takes out a whiteboard.

_NOPE. _

Apparently it's faster to write than have Meulin translate for him. Well, that's sort of good. You'll all keep your hearing that way.

"What? Of course it is!" Latula says. She snaps her gum aggressively and takes a step forward, popping her skateboard up and into one of her hands. "There is absolutely _nothing else that could be the cause of death!"_

"Wait a second, Latula," you say. "There was a big dent in Horuss's skull. Like he was hit with a blunt object or something."

"Huh?" she says, screwing up her face in a frown.

_MOTHERFUCKING HEAD TRAUMA_

"Head trauma's right," you say, giving Kurloz a nervous look. He meets your gaze and you end up looking away first. "There was blood under his nose, like it was bleeding. Why would your nose be bleeding if you died because you got all cut up? And, anyway, his wounds were all clean. It was like he was…"

_MOTHERFUCKER WAS CHOPPED UP WHEN HE WAS DEAD. BUTCHERED. :o)_

"R…right," you say. Kurloz is really freaking you out, even if he's helping you. "The knife was probably to frame a certain person."

"Wait a minute, to frame someone?" Meenah asks. She slams her hand down on the wood in front of her. "Who? That's glubbin' stupid."

"Damara Megido," you say. "They stole the knife from her room. It was completely ransacked."

"Yeah, and who's to say that she didn't just do that herself? To throw you off her trail?"

You have to think about this a little bit, but eventually you shake your head.

Damara looks at you. She looks slightly furious, but right now you just don't have the evidence to refute that claim.

"Let's think about something else reel quick," Meenah says. "Never mind that. Could be Dams, could be someone else. _But. _Those tracks. You know what I'm talking about, right, Jane?"

"Yeah," you say. "The ones in the blood."

You pause.

"There were more in Damara's room. Tracked over some of the clothes. And that's what doesn't make sense to me."

_ME NEITHER, MY WICKED SISTER. _

Kurloz lifts up a finger and begins writing. He writes for a while, almost so long that you're pretty sure that Roxy is tempted to pull out the laptop. But eventually. Kurloz looks over his work, nods, and lifts up the board.

_WE ASSUMED THAT THE TRACKS WERE MADE BY SOMETHING CARRYING THE MOTHERFUCKING BODY. A THEORY THAT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE IF THERE ARE SIMILAR TRACKS IN MEGIDO'S ROOM. SO THEY'RE SOMETHING ELSE. TELL THEM MORE ABOUT THE MOTHERFUCKING DENT._

You're not quite sure what else there is to say about the dent, so you just sort of shrug, and Kurloz sighs. He erases the board with his sleeve and draws. When he lifts it back up, you see a rather interestingly accurate drawing of Horuss Zahhak's decapitated head.

Underneath the drawing he's written something and drawn an arrow up to the caved in bit of Horuss's head.

_WHEEL-SHAPED. FIND THE WHEEL, FIND THE MOTHERFUCKING MURDER WEAPON. :o)_

He smiles at you all, but there's something almost angry about it. Like you should have figured it out before he did. He's acting a lot like Dirk was last trial, and it's really freaking you out. You don't know if he did it, or if he's just figured it all out before you did, but…

"Kurloz," you say. "If you know who it is…"

He looks at you, tilts his head to the side. His tongue darts out and licks a bit of facepaint from his lower lip. You look at him for a little bit, and he meets your gaze evenly. He doesn't blink.

"If you know who it is…" you try again, repeating yourself, but it's so hard to ask this question, for some reason. You just can't do it. Roxy manages, though, something that you're so, so very thankful for.

"If you know who it is, tell us," she says. "Stop running around in circles. Who killed Horuss."

Kurloz's lips stretch into a grin. A closed-mouth grin, something that is even more unsettling than his face most of the time, but he nods languidly and he lifts his arm. He points at each one of you in turn, and you're really confused, until his finger settles on one person.

And you can't believe it.

* * *

**Next chapter we prove that person's guiltiness-or-innocence and then we have an execution! Fun times, man. Fun times.**


	23. Chapter 23

Latula squawks as the finger lands on her. Her gum falls out of her mouth. "What the hell are you talking about? How could I kill Horuss?"

Your eyes go straight to the wheels of her skateboard. You wonder if… if she was high enough off the ground, if she could land on Horuss's head and kill him that way. You wonder if that's possible.

Kurloz's eyes bore straight into your soul and you straighten your back. "By landing on the back of his head," you say. "But then it's too obvious, the dent in his head – so you go down and steal the knife from Damara's room. You cut him up quick, you have to, but maybe you finished up after the trial yesterday."

Latula's eyes are indignant and wild. "What the hell kind of proof do you have?"

Meulin lifts her drawing high into the air. "Look! Look at this!"

_SENTIMENTALITY. MOTHER FUCKING WEAKNESS. :o)_

You look at the drawing and blink a few times. That butchered Roman Numeral Two – or a Gemini symbol. You pull out your student handbook and flip through the student profiles – yep, the symbol beside Mituna's name in your handbook is the Gemini symbol.

You sort of wonder why you, Dirk, Roxy, and Jake have seemingly meaningless symbols, but you figure that now is not the time to ask. Latula bristles, her arms tense at her sides and her eyes glaring around at all of you.

"That don't make no sense," Meenah says. "How the shell does Horuss fish into this equation?"

"That's a little bit confusing," you say. You stroke your imaginary mustache some more. Maybe it'll give you the answer. "But it could just be a matter of taking advantage of the confusion of Rufioh's trial, knowing that someone _else _had a motive to murder Horuss, and feeling indignant at Mituna's death."

You feel like that might be pretty close to the truth, because Latula glares daggers at you through her red-tinted sunglasses. Meenah shrugs.

"A'ight. Works for me."

Latula lets out a huge breath. "Yeah? And who's to say you didn't do it, Jane?"

"How is there evidence at all for that?" you say, frowning.

"Or what about Dirk? What if Dirk did it?"

"He was with me, and then Janey," Roxy says. She leans on the stand in front of her and points a fingergun at Latula. "Help me out here Jake. Finger-gun her to death."

Jake, though he's paler than usual, complies.

_MOTHER FUCKING ADMIT IT, SISTER. WHAT ELSE COULD HAVE MADE THE DENT?_

_ I'LL TELL YOU._

_ MOTHER FUCKING NOTHING. _

"You – you _liar-_"

"Lay it out, I'm sick of listening to this gill," Meenah says. She stretches, yawns. "Cod use a nap, too."

You blink a little, but nod.

"Okay," you say. "This is what happened…"

…

_The killer probably wasn't planning on killing anyone, but when they saw that Rufioh was dead, they realized that if they targeted the right person and did it while we were all confused, they would probably be able to pull it off. _

_ So, they lured Horuss out of their room with a note. They perhaps tried to make it written a bit strangely because of two reasons: first, to disguise their real writing style, and second, to perhaps try and frame Damara, whose first language isn't English. When Horuss came up to the gardens, they had been waiting. _

_ They landed on his head, and their skateboard's wheel made a dent in Horuss's head large enough to kill. But that would be too obvious, and the killer wanted to find something better, something to throw us all off their trail, so they headed off to the trial to think about it. They probably saw Damara with the knife, and that's when inspiration struck. _

_ Then the trial happened, and we all went to bed… except the killer. They went and stole the knife from Damara after making sure that none of the other knives were gone, and cut up Horuss's body. They felt like, maybe, they could do something for Mituna – so they spread the body pieces out in a Gemini symbol. But they made a mistake – as they were leaving, their wheel rolled in some blood, making a mark on the floor. Then they went to return the knife to Damara's room. My guess as to why they tore it up was to make us think that Damara had done it to her own room – it was so over-the-top that it had to be just her, right?_

_ But the blood on their wheel was the downfall. They tracked blood over some of Damara's things, and apparently didn't notice. And then they went back to bed, and the next morning Jake found the body, and that's how this all happened. _

_ Isn't that right… LATULA PYROPE?_

…

Latula doesn't say anything.

"Are you dumbasses ready to vote?" Caliborn asks. You notice that he's almost always the only one who ever is present at the trial – can Calliope just not handle it? That makes you like her a bit more, but also you think that if she can't handle it, she should just try and help you not have to kill each other.

"Yeah," Meenah says.

_MOTHER FUCKING YES._

"Yes," you say. You meet Roxy's eyes and she gives you what you guess is supposed to be a grin, but it comes out wrong. Probably because someone else is about to die.

"Button's in front of you. Do it. All of you are boring. Now that my bro The Strider is gone."

You're a little weirded out at this, but you vote anyway.

"Wow, you're right. Surprise, surprise."

And then Latula is dragged out of the room, kicking and screaming, and just like always, you follow. You notice that you've gone through a different door each time – do Calliope and Caliborn have an execution for all of you? Just in case you kill someone? Part of you is really interested in what yours is, but you know that you never want to see it. Because that would mean imminent death for you and you're not interested in that as a future plan.

In front of you is a brightly colored road. The theme to the Mario Games is playing in the background, slightly tinny and slightly out-of-tune. As all of you enter, the wall comes to life, video game characters in various states of distress dancing across the walls. The music speeds up, becoming more distorted with every note.

Latula enters from the right, low on her skateboard, and right behind her is one of those big black bullet things you remember having to avoid when you played Super Mario Bros 3 on your old Nintendo 64. It's faster than it ever was on the game, though, but there's a dip in the road and if Latula goes and crouches –

But she does, and it slams her into the pavement anyway. She skids, her face and arms bloodying as she slides across the ground. The bullet goes on its way, but then the fire-breathing turtles come out. She's too stunned to get up, and she burns alive.

You stare, and you hear soft sobbing behind you as Latula burns and screams, her body writhing on the brightly-colored road, and then a curtain drops and it's over. Her screams die, and a flickering projection appears on the curtain.

GAME OVER.

* * *

**So. Bye Latula. Next few chapters will be a breather, so we won't have a motive/killing for a while, and I need to start thinking about why this is all happening so! Look forward to picking up on clues.**


	24. Chapter 24

You all meet up in the dining hall the next morning, just like usual. Nobody looks like they got a decent night's sleep, but everyone's here, and you figure that that's the real thing you need to look for. Roxy's sitting at a corner table with Jake, Cronus's laptop in front of her. She has a lollipop in her mouth. The stick is sticking out of her mouth and Jake is halfheartedly trying to hit it with chocolate chips he launches off of a spoon.

You sit down with a plate of bacon and eggs and mutter a greeting.

"So everyone's here, now," Roxy says, glancing up for a second and meeting your eyes. Then she's back to the computer, fingers tap tap tapping away at the keys. Jake gives you a weak smile.

"Mighty strange without Strider here," he says. "Didn't think about it yesterday, with that investigation going on. But now… And Latula's gone, too."

You nod. "It's… hard every time," you say, and Jake nods vehemently. "The investigations, the executions…"

"I'm figurin' out what's going on here," Roxy says. Her typing hasn't slowed down since you sat down. You kind of wonder what she's doing, but she's got her back to the wall and it would be kind of weird to go and stand behind her. So you don't. You eat your bacon and eggs and talk to Jake. He's not as cheerful as he usually is, and you can get why. Four people have died in the past two days. At least after Mituna and Cronus died there was a bit of a break in the killing.

If you're lucky, there will be another break. After you've shown that, just because you've just investigated a murder, you won't be too weak to investigate another. That has to put people off of killing, at least for a while.

Once you're done with breakfast, you kind of want to talk to Roxy about what she's doing, but she sees you open your mouth and cuts you off. "I've got to go spend some time with this machine," she says. "Some _alone _time, if you know what I mean-"

She cuts herself off and frowns.

"That would be funny if this wasn't Cronus's laptop. Now it's got a ton of connotations to it," she says grumpily. Then she brightens, snaps off a salute, and she's gone. And so you have time for yourself. Who should you go talk to?

**FREE TIME START**

You find Kankri standing in the hallway farthest away from your room. You're out of breath, and you wonder if it's really worth it, talking to him, but you really don't want to have to run all over the school again to find someone you actually want to talk about, so you decide to just go with it.

"Hi," you say. He looks you over, and you notice that he has a whistle hanging from his neck. If you weren't sure he'd lecture you on it, you would probably groan.

"Hello," he says. He seems to brighten up a little at the prospect of someone listening to him, and it makes you feel good about yourself before he starts talking. "I suppose, if you insist, I will tell you my thoughts on just how triggering elements of this school are…"

So you listen to Kankri talk for about three hours about the triggering elements of this school, which he does not mention as the literal killing life, but as meat being on full display in the kitchen, names on the doors, and certain classmates and their aversion to seeing people being executed.

Do you really want to give him a present?

Well…

You figure it can't hurt.

You look through the things that you got from the school store and settle on some little spy cameras. You offer them, and his eyes widen.

"W-well, of course I can't accept a gift, because how would others who don't get gifts such as these feel, you really should have warned me before this, but I will have to take these," he says. He takes them, and you stare at each other for a few moments before he starts babbling again. "Do you know what the color red represents?"

"Passion?" you guess, and he nods.

"As well as that, blood, war, and danger. That's why I wear a red sweater," Kankri says. You notice with some amusement that the sleeves are so long they cover his hands. "To show the passion that I feel about those injustices. It's why I'm the Super High School Level Social Justice Warrior. We've gotten a bit of a bad reputation, but, trigger warning, profane language, I don't give a damn if other people think I'm annoying, or rude, or anything like that. Because I'm passionate about these things. You would do well to be the same."

With that, he leaves, and you're about to head back into your room when you run into Roxy.

**FREE TIME END**

"I think we've got a traitor," she says. "Come with me."

You follow her into the changing room at the bathhouse. Cronus's laptop is propped up on a bench and you can hear it whirring. There's a cute little cat bounding around on-screen that you're pretty sure wasn't on his machine to start with.

"I added that," Roxy says, smiling. "His name's Frigglish. Cutest little pixelated cat on this side of the U-S-of-A."

"So, who's the traitor?" you ask, and Roxy frowns.

"I don't quite know," she says. "But… I have a few suspicions. I managed to hack into the main network of the school for about three minutes, and when I was shut down, they showed this symbol."

She clicks on an icon on the desktop and Frigglish opens it, leaping up and batting it open with adorable little paws. It opens into a picture of the Capricorn symbol, purple and dripping with what would be blood if blood was purple.

"Kurloz?" you ask, frowning. "That's his symbol, right? But-"

"It makes sense," Roxy says. She chews on her knuckles, and her speech is muffled. "He's smart. And creepy. So, IDK, but it seems kinda likely to me."

"Who should we tell?"

Roxy grabs your arm. "Nobody. Not yet," she says. "I need… I need more. We can't have them suspectin' him. If they do and it's not him… well, it won't be good. Just wait on it."

You have a bad feeling in your stomach when you go back to your room for the night.

* * *

**Here we go! I actually think that this is the fanfiction that I'm currently writing that's going to take the longest to finish. Because. We need to whittle this group down to five. And… that may take a while.**


	25. Chapter 25

Funnily enough, the first person you see the next morning is Kurloz. You get up early, as you've started to, to go and make breakfast, and when you pass the small hallway leading to the infirmary, a back staircase, and the storage room, you see him. He's standing there, staring into the storage room, and making some really rude-looking gestures with his hands.

"Kurloz?" you call, keeping your discussion with Roxy in the back of your mind the whole while. You don't know what he's doing there – you have absolutely no idea what he's doing, or who he's talking to – but you figure that you should try and find out.

He jumps and slams the door to the storage room shut before turning and giving you a wave and a tight smile. A tight smile that says 'if you come near me you're going to be the next murder victim', so you just keep walking. You think that you'll make French toast for everyone today. That's something you haven't made next.

Maybe tomorrow you can make an egg bake.

You contemplate cooking plans for the future while you tie the waist of your apron and cook. You keep Kurloz out of your mind. You know that Roxy probably wants you to be thinking about it, to be trying to figure out how he's the traitor – and, honestly, it really looks like it, because of his suspicious behavior this morning, and you've never really been inclined to trust a _Cult Leader _– but you really just want to make some French toast.

And you make some darn good French toast.

Everyone's gotten used to you cooking, it seems, because they're all waiting in the dining hall by the time you're done. You carry out two platefuls stacked high with the French toast and go back for syrup and things – they can get their own plates and silverware, and most of them already have – but eventually everyone has something to eat and you plop down between Roxy and Jake. The three of you have become a bit of a triad.

"Hey, Roxy –" you say, and she glances up. She looks exhausted again today, and you wonder if she's gotten a decent night's sleep since she got her hands on Cronus's laptop. You think not. "Remember what we were talking about yesterday?"

"Yeah, about our capricious friend," she says, and you think this is a very good way of hiding what's going on. Jake looks between the two of you, his face scrunched up in confusion. "What about it?"

"Well, this morning – I saw something that makes me think that you're right. That he is the one," you say, and her eyes widen and she grabs your wrist.

"Finish your meal quick, Janey, we need to go and talk."

"What in the blazes is going on here?" Jake asks. "I feel like I'm being left out!"

"Sorry, Jake," Roxy says. She flashes him a grin, and while normally he is quite the smiley fellow, his face stays stubbornly in a frown. "You'll get caught up eventually, I _praw-miss. _But for now I wanna keep this between me and my best gal, alright?"

Jake frowns at her for a while longer, but he eventually breaks. "Alright," he says. He finishes up his French toast and stands, giving you a smile. "Damn good breakfast, Jane."

You give him a nod and a smile back and then you finish your French toast faster than you probably should, if you take into consideration the fact that you shouldn't eat food so fast or it could upset your stomach, and you barely have time to throw the dishes into the sink before Roxy pushes you into the bathhouse. She looks at you expectantly.

"This morning when I went to get breakfast, I saw him talking to someone in the storeroom – I mean, talking with his hands, since we both know full well that he can't actually talk – and when I talked to him… well, I called out hello, of course, I wasn't born in a barn, and he slammed the door shut so fast you'd have thought he had the devil on the other side."

"The devil… or Caliborn," Roxy says, tapping one pink-painted fingernail against her lower lip. "We've got to check it out."

"You two are certainly getting into something," a voice – a slightly prim, cultured voice, one that sounds like it's used to launching into speeches and not stopping unless paid – says, and you turn to see Aranea Serket step out of the bathhouse and into the changing room. She's wearing nothing but a towel, and her glasses are gone, but she tips her head to the side and gives you a smile. "What do you suspect poor Kurloz of?"

Roxy stiffens, but you don't see why you shouldn't tell Aranea – no matter how much you dislike her for stealing Jake right away, she seems smart. She can probably help. So you tell her. "Roxy thinks that he's a traitor. To Caliborn. And… I think so, too."

"Fascinating," Aranea says, her eyes sparkling. She pulls her clothes out of a locker and begins to dress. "So we're going to see what is in that storeroom now, correct?"

"I don't remember inviting you along," Roxy says, and you frown at her.

"There's no reason why she shouldn't come along," you say, and Roxy eventually relents, but you feel like there's some animosity between the two of them, for some reason. And you can't help but feel like the third member of your party, if you're going to have one, should be Dirk.

But he's dead. His head was chopped up outside a fake Louvre to the chants of fake French peasants – and you can't help but think of what Caliborn said after his execution. 'The prince is dead, now your shit is wrecked.'

You can't help but wonder what he meant by 'prince.' As far as you know, Dirk was just a swordsman. He wasn't royalty. If anyone's royalty, you could say that it's you and Meenah, as the heiresses to Betty Crocker. But Prince Dirk…. That doesn't seem like it's actually true.

But you still wonder about it.

But the third member of your party isn't Dirk, it's Aranea Serket, her hair making little droplets of water run down her glasses because she didn't even ask if she could blow-dry it before they set off. You almost suggested it, because as it is now she's dripping _everywhere, _but apparently the thrill of the hunt is more important to her than wet hair. Which you can understand, really – or, which you could, if you weren't so wary about this.

It's Aranea who opens the door to the storage room, too, and the first thing you notice is the smell. You can't quite place it – you're sort of sheltered when it comes to drugs and things, but Roxy can.

"Reeks of pot," she says, wrinkling her nose. You glance around, and the second thing you notice is the mess. Several boxes were dragged and stacked to make room in the middle, and there are a few empty bottles of Faygo in the middle of a pile of blankets. You frown.

"Faygo?" you ask. Aranea is the one who answers.

"Kurloz drinks it. I saw him carrying a few cases back to his room – and, in fact, the Makaras own the company that produces it. They are to the soda world what Betty Crocker is to the baking world, if you will."

Aranea apparently thinks you want this, so she continues into a history of the Makara family.

"The Makara family is a bit… ill-reputed, so to speak, but they do have massive amounts of money. They are also deeply religious, but not in the God that you or I may believe in. There's a reason why Kurloz is called a cult leader – because that's, really, what their religion is. No more than a cult. They do have followers, however, if only because of the crime that they dabble in, but the majority of their money comes from Faygo. A mediocre drink at best, but if you'll remember, it was becoming quite popular shortly before we entered this school.

"Kurloz is part of what you could call the main branch of the family. This consists of him, his father, and his younger brother. Kurloz is apparently the stable one, which is quite possibly why he has taken lead of the cult. His muteness, as well, is told to have something to do with the cult – some say that it is selective muteness, others say he was born mute, and yet others say that it was a ritual that stole his voice, but most signs point back to the cult that he heads.

"Faygo is one of the calling cards of a Makara – and, as well as that, the smiley faces that Kurloz draws behind a few words – the ones with the noses? Those are also trademark Makara. Th-"

"Interesting, but it looks like someone's been living in here," Roxy interrupts. She's been poking around while Aranea was talking, and now she looks up at you. She's frowning. "And I don't think it's Kurloz."

* * *

**Whenever I dip back into this fanfiction I get excited about it, agh.**


	26. Chapter 26

You and Aranea exchange glances, and she speaks.

"What do you mean by that?"

"I'm saying," Roxy says, enunciating her words clearly as she crawls around on the floor, dirtying her knees and palms. "That there's no use for Kurloz to be living here. He's got his room. There's someone else in this school, and I don't know who, but –"

She's cut off by someone snapping their fingers and jerks upward, hitting her head on a shelf. You hurry over to help her before turning to see Kurloz standing at the doorway, his eyes narrowed and whiteboard in his hands.

_**WHAT THE MOTHER FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE.**_

No smiley face this time. Not even a frowny face.

"It's the storeroom," Aranea says, but you can see her shaking, if only a little bit. "It's the storeroom, and we can be in here if we wish."

_**WHILE THAT IS MOTHER FUCKING TRUE, YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT ME. WHY.**_

It's Roxy who answers this, and she says something that you think is probably a bad idea, but what's done is done. She says, "What are you hiding?"

Kurloz clenches the sides of the whiteboard so tightly that you think that it might snap, but then scowls, seems to consider it, and nods. He beckons for the three of you to follow him, and you do – and you're also pretty sure that, had it just been one of you, you'd be dead. Or even if it had been two of you. Kurloz could have very easily killed both you and Roxy in that situation, so thank God for Aranea Serket.

You really never thought you'd think that.

He leads the three of you back to his room. You don't pass anyone on the way, which makes you a little nervous – because who knows what he has for you, back in his room? Nobody's going to know where you are, but…

But Roxy is following him with that determined look on her face, even with a little bit of blood running down the back of her neck. You really think that you should check out where she hit her head, but she doesn't seem to be suffering any adverse effects, so you figure that it can wait. You will check it out later. You will. This is just a little bit more important right now.

For some reason, Kurloz knocks on his door. He doesn't wait for whoever – your main guess is Meulin, she's the only person that you know likes Kurloz enough to be in his room – to answer the door, he just unlocks it and opens it.

And in the middle of this dark, frankly creepy, slightly religious-looking room is a boy that you've never seen before in your life. He's sprawled out on the floor, on his back – he's got one hand on a bottle of Faygo, and Kurloz's room smells exactly like the storage room. Stronger, maybe.

The boy looks up at you, and you figure him at about two or three years younger than Kurloz. Apart from that, though, he looks about exactly the same – he's got the same unruly mess of black hair, though you'd guess that Kurloz's is longer, and he's got the same strangely delicate features – but his face is marred by three long scars, going from one corner of his face down to the other. He's slapped some sort of paint on it – greyscale clown paint, it looks like, like he's some sort of black-and-white Pennywise.

"Hey, brother," the boy says, looking up at Kurloz and smiling. He doesn't seem to notice you, Roxy, or Aranea. There's something hazy about the way that he's acting, and speaking – like he's under the influence of something. Roxy frowns.

"Kurloz, did you bring your little stoner brother into this school?"

The boy notices the three of you and his mouth breaks into a smile. "Motherfuckin' awesome, bro. You found friends! 's a motherfucking miracle."

Kurloz scowls, and pulls the three of you in the rest of the way and slams the door shut. He works at his whiteboard, and your eyes are starting to water from the smell. Eventually Kurloz is done and gives you the whiteboard to read before going over to who you suppose is his younger brother.

_**YES, THIS IS MY LITTLE BROTHER. HIS NAME IS GAMZEE. I DON'T MOTHER FUCKING KNOW HOW HE GOT IN HERE. I FOUND HIM A FEW DAYS AGO. THIS IS THE ONLY WAY TO KEEP HIM CALM. I APOLOGIZE FOR THE MOTHER FUCKING SMELL. :o( BUT YOU DON'T WANT TO MOTHER FUCKING SEE HIM WHEN HE'S ON THE MOTHER FUCKING STRAIGHT AND NARROW. **_

"I have a younger sister, did you know that?" Aranea says. The two of you look at her, and you frown a little, wondering what this has to do with it. "She's a devious little girl who doesn't play well with others. That's what all of her report cards have said. But… she's younger than the younger Makara, which is strange. I remember… when I read it, I remember thinking that, that it was kind of interesting that the younger Makara was the same age as Vriska. But… I guess I was wrong."

She sounds more disturbed about the fact that she may have been wrong than anything else that has happened in this situation. It doesn't really make you like her very much, but it is sort of interesting. Aranea seems like someone who isn't very used to being wrong.

"I have a little sister, too," Roxy mentions, and you think about your younger cousin that's almost like a little brother to you – but you figure that right now is not the time to be talking about this sort of thing. So you turn back to Kurloz, who has apparently sedated Gamzee enough to keep him quiet.

"But you know what this means, right?" Aranea says, glancing around at all of you. "If this boy got _in _– that means that we can get out."

Kurloz rejoins you, takes his whiteboard back, and wipes it clean with his sleeve before writing again. It seems rude, almost, to talk while he's formulating his response, so you all shut up. Eventually, he holds it up again.

_**EXACTLY MY IDEA. BUT THIS LITTLE BITCH WON'T TALK ABOUT ANYTHING THAT'S MOTHER FUCKING REAL. HE'S ALL FRIENDSHIP AND MAGIC WHEN HE'S LIKE THIS. **_

"Then…" Aranea starts to say, but Kurloz shakes his head.

_**I'M GOING TO MOTHER FUCKING LET YOU GO NOW, BUT DON'T TELL ANYONE. **_

He doesn't add a threat onto the end of that, but you can all guess what he means. He's threatening the three of you, and you know for sure that _you _won't be spilling the beans. And, looking around at Roxy and Aranea, you think that they won't either.

* * *

**So, here we go! Another motive will be released soon, probably.**


	27. Chapter 27

The next morning you wake up and you have that horrible feeling again. The one that you had the morning that Rufioh died, and you can't help but think that someone's dead. That someone's dead and that you're all going to have to go through everything again and, honestly, you're not sure if you can handle it.

You leave your room early. It's about a quarter after five, and you're pretty sure that you'll be the only one up for a while. You can make something really special for breakfast – and maybe you can sneak some down to Gamzee Makara. Don't people who do… that… eat a lot? You're not totally up to par on your 'how drug addicts work' facts, but you think so. You really have no idea.

You're halfway through making breakfast when Kurloz rushes in. His eyes are wide and his hands shake as he writes on his whiteboard.

_**HAVE YOU MOTHER FUCKING SEEN MY LITTLE BRO I CAN'T FIND HIM ANYWHERE AND IF HE GETS LOOSE HE MIGHT KILL SOMEONE WE CAN'T VOTE FOR SOMEONE NOT IN OUR CLASS IT DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY HAVE YOU MOTHER FUCKING SEEN HIM.**_

"N-no," you say, and you are sufficiently freaked out. Kurloz scowls, and his scowl is about the worst thing you have ever heard. It cuts his face into something terrible, something that you don't ever want to run into on a bright sunny day, let alone murder school. "We can look, though. Where would he go?"

His hands go into some sign-language-ramble that you don't understand, but eventually he just grips his hair in both hands and shakes his head. He beckons you with a nod of his head and you follow him out of the kitchen. It's nearly seven by now, but still nobody's awake but the two of you – you're getting a little freaked out now, where is everyone? Are they dead? Is it just you and Kurloz left in the world?

This isn't something that you ever wanted to happen. Like, ever. You would honestly probably prefer being alone with Aranea than with Kurloz. And that's really saying something.

Kurloz leads you to the principal's office. You've never been up here – and standing in front of this door makes you think of Dirk. How he tried to see if it really was the motive that you had to look up for. You can practically see him pounding on the door, trying to get them to listen to him, and the thought makes you tear up. Kurloz doesn't notice, and for this you're glad.

He doesn't knock on the door, though, which is a little weird to you. He just… opens it. You don't know if it's been unlocked this whole time and nobody else has been smart enough to realize it, or if he's been sneaking around places he probably shouldn't be. You're pretty sure that it's the latter.

Once inside the principal's office, you're sort of struck with the fact that you're in the principal's office when you probably shouldn't be, but he gets right to work. He tears through the desk drawers until coming up with a ring of keys and a small box, and you wonder how the heck the two of you have managed to escape detection for so long. You're about to mention it when the monitor in the room statics on. You jump, and Kurloz nearly tips over the desk.

It's Calliope on the monitor, and this is something that relieves you more than you'd like to admit. "Please go to the gym for your next motive," she says. She smiles, and then she continues. "Please hurry. And remember, those of you in places you shouldn't be should remember to put things back exactly where you found them."

Kurloz scribbles on his board for a few seconds and shows it to you.

_**GO. I'LL MEET YOU GUYS LATER. I NEED TO FIND MY BROTHER.**_

You're a little hesitant, but you go. You walk quickly down to the gym – you don't want to be anywhere near the principal's office when it blows up, as it inevitably will. You're worried about Kurloz, of course, and you're worried about all of you because of Gamzee's escape… you don't really know if you should trust Kurloz about his brother, but you'd rather be safe than sorry.

It takes a while for everyone to drift in. You look for Kurloz, but he doesn't show up until the end, looking more flustered than you've ever seen him. He doesn't acknowledge you. He just goes back and starts up a conversation with Meulin. All in sign language, too, so you have no idea what they're saying.

You find Roxy and Jake, who are clumped together at the side of the room. They both look pale.

"Janey!" Roxy says when she sees you. She grabs onto your hands, clutching onto you like you're her life preserver. "Where have you been? I stopped by your room this morning, but you weren't there –"

"I'll tell you later," you say. You sneak a glance at Jake, who's looking at something in the distance. He looks a little out of it, but no less cute than before.

Unsurprisingly, you don't have to wait long before Caliborn shows up. Your heart sinks into your stomach – considering it was Calliope that made the announcement, you were hoping that it would be her who gave you the motive. Something like you had the first time, because you don't think that anyone here is as shallow as Cronus was. At least, hopefully.

"Alright, idiots," Caliborn says. He looks over you all, and you swear that his gaze lingers on you a little bit. Is it because you were in the principal's office? You think might that be the case, but you can't really be sure. It takes him a while to speak again, and you wonder if Calliope's trying to take over. You definitely hope she is. But eventually he speaks. "This time you get to kill people or watch your family get killed. Here, let's have an example."

He claps his little puppet hands and a large projector screen comes down behind him. He claps his hands again and a projector turns on and the lights dim. You're almost one hundred percent sure that you don't want to see this, but you can't help but look anyway.

The scene shown is that of a woman, probably in her thirties, chained to a wall. Roxy stiffens beside you, and you glance at her. Then you glance at the woman. There's no way they're not related.

"Mom," Roxy says, her voice breaking, and Caliborn claps a few more times. The woman is electrocuted. She hangs, limp, and Roxy screams. She lurches forward, and it takes both you and Jake to hold her back. Jake's saying all sorts of things in her ear, comforting things:

"-don't worry lass, it's not real, there's no way it can be real, you can be stronger than that, I _believe _in you Rox-"

And you're just trying to make sure that she doesn't rip the puppet's head off. Your thoughts turn back to Kurloz and Gamzee, and you realize that _that _must be where the younger Makara went.

And then you think about your family. Is it your dad? Your cousin John? You're trying to think but you're coming up blank. Caliborn smiles, and then Meenah strides forward, smacking hard on her gum.

"Okay, what about a time limit?" she asks, and Caliborn's grin widens.

"Every day at noon. I'll kill one," Caliborn says. He laughs, holding his stomach, and he sounds like such a cliché villain you're disgusted. You're disgusted anyway, of course, but it makes you even more disgusted. "Depending on who annoys me the most."

With that, he pops out of sight.

And you don't know if you can trust about anyone. Roxy. Roxy is probably the only one you can trust. Jake, you don't want to _not _trust Jake, but he's paling and muttering about his family, so you don't know.

You just don't know.

* * *

**Heyyy so we've got a new motive! Fun times, right?**


	28. Chapter 28

You're making a batch of cookies when Meulin bounds up to you. You jump, because you're a little freaked out since seeing Roxy's mother getting killed this past morning, but you don't think that someone as cute as Meulin could ever kill someone.

Still, you be sure that you stand between her and the knives.

"Purrloz wants to see you!" Meulin says brightly. You hesitate – you don't really want to be in the same room as Kurloz, but maybe it's about this morning. Maybe he's found something, and maybe, since you were with him in the principal's office, since you knew about his brother… maybe he trusts you. And maybe he wants to work with you.

And even if this is a creepy thought, you really want to know what's going on here. So you follow Meulin, who hums and chats and bounces all the way up to the dojo on the top floor. You send a nervous glance at the garden. You still can't forget Horuss's death. Horuss's brutal murder – you don't think you'll ever be able to forget that.

"After mew!" Meulin says, and you enter the dojo after another nervous look toward her. She bounds in after you. You don't see Kurloz anywhere. You take another few steps forward, and then the door clicks shut and you whirl around.

Kurloz stands there. He's got his usual easy smile on his face, but it seems too easy this time. It seems fake, it seems unnatural, and it seems _creepy as heck. _You take another shaky step back, and faster than you can say hello, Kurloz wraps one end of the rope around Meulin's neck and makes a noose faster than you can tie your shoes. He pulls it tight and flings the other end of the rope around a rafter and advances on you. He's pulling the rope as he does it, and Meulin wriggles and kicks and gasps for breath. You don't know when she dies.

You can't move.

The spell breaks when he wraps the rope around your neck and that's when you start fighting. You punch and you kick and you try to scream, but he's fast. And he's a lot stronger than you.

You really don't have much choice in the matter.

Your name is Jane Crocker, and you have just been murdered.

…

Your name is Aranea Serket, and you have just found three bodies.

Let's backtrack a bit – you were combing the school for any sign of the kidnapped relatives. You're not totally sure who they would pick for you, but you have a feeling that it's your younger sister, and annoying as she might be sometimes, you don't want to see her die. So you've been looking.

And it looks like someone else has taken things into their own hands, because there are three dead people in this room.

Two are hanging from the ceiling, on the same rope. Meulin Leijon and Jane Crocker, both of them with the purpley faces and clawing hands that speak of strangulation. The third is Kurloz Makara, on the ground with a shovel stabbed straight through his middle. He's staring up at the two of them, and you would say he looks peaceful if that wasn't such utter bullshit.

You take a few steps back and run into someone. You turn and it's Meenah, her hair wet like she just came out of the pool. "I had a bad feeling, gill," she says. "And looks like I was right, huh? Oh, oh, shit."

"Three," you say. "Three of them. Someone… someone…"

"We've gotta tell them all," Meenah says. She's so shocked that she's even stopped with the fish puns. It's a miracle. You thought she'd never stop with that, even if it is a little cute. "I'll go."

You wait. She brings back Jake, and you're glad for this, because Jake is probably the cutest boy here. He throws up when he sees the bodies, though, which, while understandable, is going to be unbearable when Kankri gets here and starts spouting off about emetophobia. While you know that this is a perfectly reasonable phobia, it's not something that you need to hear about every time someone is sick because of the death that surrounds you all.

But with Jake comes the death file, and with that comes the announcement, and then everyone's standing in a circle around the dead bodies glumly. Roxy is the last to arrive, for once without Cronus's laptop. She looks a bit disheveled; her eyes are red like she's been crying and her skin his pale and clammy-looking. You guess this is because she saw her mother die. But the laptop… you wonder where it went. You wonder if you can maybe get your hands on it while Roxy's investigating, or if she's going to go straight back to it. You don't know if she'll be able to, though, because as soon as she sees Jane's body she starts sobbing. She collapses on the floor and sobs, and you think she's being a little overdramatic, frankly.

Although you guess you would be sad if Meenah died. You try to keep this in mind as Roxy's sobs fill the air.

Eventually, Porrim clears her throat.

"Well," she says. She glances at the bodies, and then at the investigation file in Meenah's hands. "I guess we should get started, then."

**INVESTIGATION START**

* * *

**So this was a really short chapter with a lot packed into it – not even a thousand words, I know, I know, but I was nearly done and didn't really have that much time and I just decided to end it there.**


	29. Chapter 29

You decide that you'll listen to Porrim read the investigation file, and then you'll go and hunt for Cronus's laptop. Thankfully, Porrim wastes no time in skimming the paper and giving you all a synopsis of what happened. Normally, you'd grab the paper yourself, but you've learned that they don't really need your help when it comes to this, and you can go and do what you need to do.

"Hmm… Meulin and Jane died at about three," Porrim says. She sucks on one of her lip rings, and then continues. "Cause of death, strangulation – so there's nothing funny about that this time. Kurloz died about half an hour later, because he was stabbed. I don't think we need to guess on what the motive is this time."

You all shake your head. "It's pretty obvifish," Meenah says, and you smile a little behind your hand, because Meenah Peixes will never change. "Someone didn't want their family to die. It's understandable."

Everyone takes about three steps away from her. You do, too, even though you don't think that it was her. Even though she was wet when she saw you, and that could have been an easy way to wash off the blood…

But it's not Meenah Peixes. Meenah wouldn't go for it this fast. She'd bide her time, wouldn't she? And she wouldn't do something like this because it gave her a chance of being caught. She wouldn't risk her life for whatever family member this group took from her.

She doesn't notice, though, and she walks over to Kurloz. You think that this is the perfect time to slip out and find that laptop, so you do so. You leave the room and go downstairs and stop in front of Roxy's room. You glance from side-to-side, just in case someone's watching you, and you scream a little when you see Caliborn.

Then you calm down.

"Can you let me in?" you ask, and Caliborn looks like he's deliberating whether he should or not, but eventually he does. Probably because, if you're caught, it will definitely cause a rift in your nonexistent friendship with Roxy Lalonde. That seems like something that Caliborn wants to see, especially considering Calliope and Roxy's slightly strange friendship.

Roxy's room is exactly as you'd expect it to be. It's pink and purple and somehow similarly girly and badass at the same time. She has Cronus's laptop on the desk, which is surrounded by little kitten statues. On one wall she has an old TV and a few old Atari video game systems cobbled together, and the screen is showing a game of Pitfall.

On her bed is Gamzee Makara.

He looks at you when you enter and smiles a lazy smell. "Well, hey, motherfuckin' Roxy's friend," he says, and you have no idea what to do. You wonder if he'll tell if you take the computer, or if the fact that he's stoned all the time means that he won't care enough to. You inch toward the desk, shutting the door behind you, and he unscrews a bottle of Faygo. It's a huge bottle, one that you'd serve at a party, but he just rights himself and chugs it. You have no clue how he can do that without throwing up everything in his contents.

You also wonder, hey, _why's he here_, but you figure that can wait until you get your hands on Cronus's laptop. You head for it, and thankfully it's already logged in, so you don't have to work through passwords and everything, but you have no clue where to start. Several of the files have a little padlock on them, and when you click, you're denied access. So you go to the files that Roxy has, presumably, unencrypted already.

You click through pictures not unlike the one that Roxy showed you all back when she started unencrypting the files. It's all of you, and that fills you with dread. There's Kurloz, sitting crosslegged across from Meulin, both of them in academy uniforms and, from the blurs where their hands should be, signing frantically. There's Rufioh, decked out in cosplay, smiling shyly into the camera. There's a pair of hands entwined, and you know that it's you and Meenah, because you'd recognize both pairs of hands like _that. _You frown, wondering where in the hell Cronus got all of these pictures.

The Dirk one was weird on its own, but all of these… you think that there's a lot going on here; or, at least, more than all of you thought at first. You don't know why, but you wish that Jane hadn't died. She seemed to at least want to figure out what was going on. And now the others are working on figuring out who the killer is, and if they don't, you'll all die.

Maybe you should see what you can figure out on your own. You turn to Gamzee, who has abandoned you in favor of a top. He's spinning it across the floor, laughing, and you decide to just leave him alone. You hook up Roxy's computer to the old printer she's found and print off all of the photos and steal a bag to keep them in. Roxy has about a thousand, she won't miss one. And, anyway, it's the sole blue bag in her collection, she's always wearing pink or black, so you think that you'll be fine.

You decide to go back to the crime scene. You don't know how much time you have left, but you don't think it's very much – just enough for you to do a quick look-around, and if you're lucky, Meenah will be guarding the body. She'll let you get away with anything, and you her, so you think that it'll be fine.

When you get up there, though, it's Roxy and Damara. Roxy frowns when she sees your bag.

"That mine?" she asks.

"Oh, yes-" you say. "I needed to carry somethings and your door was open. I figured that since you don't usually use this one it would be fine."

"Totally cool," Roxy says, nodding, but she looks nervous. Because she thinks you got into her computer or because of Gamzee? Why was Gamzee in her room, anyway?

"Anyway, I was thinking that I would like to take a look at the crime scene, because I had my own things to attend to while all of you were inspecting it," you say, and Roxy nods. She looks frustrated, and you still don't know if it's because you were in her room or because of this whole situation. She was close with Jane, you know – it was her, Jane, Dirk, and Jake, from the very beginning. But Dirk's been executed and now Jane's dead, too, and, well – you'd say that you're closer to Jake English than Roxy Lalonde is.

But you decide to inspect anyway. You focus your efforts on Kurloz, because Jane and Meulin are too far up for you to really inspect. The shovel through his middle was thrust once; there are no extra stab wounds, and you think that this speaks of either no resistance or someone very strong. There are a few strange flakes in the puddle of Kurloz's blood, and you frown, crouching down further. You can't quite tell the color of them, but they're… they're not what you'd think would be in pools of blood.

You're about to look further when the monitor fuzzes on.

It's time for the trial to start.

* * *

**This is an interesting POV because Aranea's… not the main character? So she's off doing her own thing while the others are figuring things out together. Who's the main character now, the one who'll tie it all together? IDK, maybe they'll just all die. But basically, this is like, Komaeda's bit in SDR2, where you have to go into the Final Dead Room and cry because you're Komaeda. Except we're Aranea forever now.**


	30. Chapter 30

You're surprised to see Gamzee with the others at the elevator.

Everyone else is staying as far away from him as possible, which you understand – some kid that looks like Kurloz that none of you have seen before in your life, stinking of pot and Faygo, wearing baggy sweatpants and a stained t-shirt three sizes too big for him isn't going to be popular right off the bat. Well, ever, but definitely not right off the bat.

Roxy's the last one to enter, carrying Cronus's laptop clutched to her chest. She's breathing hard; her hair's falling in her face and everything. She pushes it back with chipped pink-painted nails, and the pictures in your bag seem to grow hot. She has to know that you were in there looking at things, but she's not saying anything. You think that she'll continue to keep quiet, because there's really nobody here that she can still trust. Which is good, you think.

Very good.

You head down to the courtroom in silence. Nobody seems to want to talk, not even Kankri, or Meenah – or you, for that matter. But you don't think that there's anything to be gained from talking right now. Three people just died, and you're about to lose another. Unless, of course, Kurloz killed himself…

You file that thought away in your pretty little head. It's possible.

"Alright, dumbasses," Caliborn says. "Get on with it."

**TRIAL START**

Porrim kicks off the trial this time.

"I don't think I'll have any opposition when I say that it's fairly obvious that Kurloz killed Meulin and Jane?" she says. There are a few mutters, but you decide that you want to contradict. You have to explore all possibilities if you want to live.

"Did he? What if he just saw whoever killed them, and then they killed him as well?" you say, and Porrim turns to Roxy, who pulls a piece of paper out of her pocket. She unfolds it and smoothes it out, presenting it to all of you.

"Kurloz's admittance note," she says. The edges of the paper are torn, like she took it from a notebook without perforated edges. "Meenah looked through his room, and this was in his diary."

_I AM GOING TO MOTHER FUCKING KILL MEULIN TODAY. THEY SAY TO KILL JANE, TOO. :O) I DON'T MOTHER FUCKING KNOW WHY, BUT THAT'S WHAT I'LL MOTHER FUCKING DO. IT'S TO KEEP GAMZEE FROM DEATH. HE CAN'T DIE, THE MINISTERS WON'T MOTHER FUCKING LIKE THAT. IF I DIE, IT'S :O( NO :O( MOTHER FUCKING :O( PROBLEM. _

_ BUT GAMZEE NEEDS TO LIVE. SO I'LL MOTHER FUCKING KILL BOTH OF THEM, AND THEN GAMZEE WILL BE ALRIGHT._

"Who won't motherfuckin' like me dead?" Gamzee asks, leaning forward. He's standing where Kurloz usually stands. Both Meulin and Jane have stands with their picture on them, but Gamzee is now your Makara, apparently. "I don't motherfuckin' know what he's talkin' about."

"This looks so faked," you say. Roxy raises an eyebrow. "Well, it does! Either you're faking it, Roxy, or someone else did and planted it."

"I wish I would've been able to tell him that Gamzee was in my room," she says, completely ignoring what you said. You bristle, wondering who she thinks she is, to just ignore you like that. "They must have had someone else of his, but Gamzee… he was with me from the start."

Gamzee nods, grinning widely. Some of the makeup around his mouth has smudged.

"That doesn't change the fact that it looks faked," you say. You look to Meenah for confirmation, and she shrugs.

"Found it in his room," she says. "He had a whole book full of the same kind of shit. Nothing fishy about this."

"Oh, you don't need to shove in a fish pun like that if you can't figure out a way to throw one into your actual words," you snap, and she blinks, looking shocked. You take a deep breath, close your eyes for a second, and nod. "Okay. I'm sorry. But let's move away from them for now, because, assuming Kurloz did kill Jane and Meulin, he didn't want to be caught. So who killed him? Was it someone who saw the murder? Was he going to kill them, too, or did they take him by surprise?"

"Hm," Porrim says. She taps her fingers on the wood in front of her, shaving off little splinters with her fingernails. They fall to the floor, and you're reminded of the flakes in Kurloz's blood. They don't look the same as the splinters, that's for sure – but similar. You file that away for later use. "The file did say that he had no other injuries but the shovel straight through the chest."

Kankri opens his mouth, and Porrim vaults over Cronus's and Meenah's areas to slap a hand over his mouth. Kankri wriggles, and Jake frowns.

"Let the chap speak," he says. "He might have something important to say."

"Yeah, right," Meenah says, but Porrim lifts her hand anyway. Kankri sniffs, adjusts his sweater, and looks like he's going to start yelling at Porrim. Meenah intervenes. "Only say what you were going to say be_fore _this fine gill slapped her hand over your mouth."

Kankri swallowed hard, and crossed his arms over his chest. "I was gardening," he said. "It's a very good way to keep yourself busy and get some physical activity without feeling inadequate to others, you know. But, I was working, and I looked to find the shovel, but I ran into someone."

"Into who?" you say. This could prove very interesting. You glance around – most of the others look curious, or a bit surprised that Kankri likes to garden.

All except one of them.

"Miss Lalonde," Kankri says, and Roxy jumps. She's scraping the fingernail polish off of her fingernails again. You slam your hands against the wood in front of you. "It was you, wasn't it?"

"Flakes from her nail polish," you say. Roxy is a sick greenish color now. "Jake, can you collect some of the flakes that have fallen down by her feet, please?"

Jake gives you a nervous look, but does as you ask. He brings you a few flakes on the pad of his finger, and you turn to Meenah.

"Meenah, an earring, please," you say, and when she gives you one, you press your lips together and jab yourself in the finger. It hurts, it hurts a lot, but it's worth it for this. A few drops of blood fall onto the flakes of fingernail polish, and Jake winces away. "This is what was in Kurloz's blood. Flakes of nail polish."

"Holy shit," Meenah says. She grins a sharklike grin. "This gon' be good."

* * *

**Whaaaat nobody saw this coming at allll oh my gooooood but yeah that happened**


End file.
